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COMBATTING THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: BURNOUT, SUPPORT NETWORKS AND COPING STRATEGIES OF TESOL TEACHERS AT PRIVATE LANGUAGE SCHOOLS IN JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

by AMANDA DEBORAH BOWEN Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY in the subject ENGLISH at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR BRENDA SPENCER CO-SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR FREDERICK SNYDERS November 2013

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DECLARATION I declare that the thesis, “Combatting The Downward Spiral: Burnout, Support Networks and Coping Strategies of TESOL Teachers at Private Language Schools in Johannesburg, South Africa”, is my own work, and that all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references.

SIGNATURE Amanda Deborah Bowen Student number: 08005400

DATE 01 November 2013

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ABSTRACT The aim of the research study, Combatting the Downward Spiral: Burnout, Support Networks and Coping Strategies of TESOL Teachers at Private Language Schools in Johannesburg, South Africa was firstly to determine whether TESOL teachers working in private language schools in Johannesburg, South Africa suffered from burnout. Secondly, the aim was to discover which factors caused stress for TESOL teachers inside and outside the classroom, what support structures were available for burned out TESOL teachers and the type of coping strategies TESOL teachers used to manage burnout. Using a mixed method design which consisted of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey and semi-structured interviews, the findings revealed that 46% of the TESOL teachers who participated in the research study were suffering from high levels of burnout. Interviews revealed three main areas that caused stress for TESOL teachers: the job of teaching, relationships at work and organisational and TESOL-related issues. These areas were divided further into various sub-themes. Furthermore, support structures for burned out TESOL teachers were generally inadequate and although TESOL teachers attempted to manage burnout by using a variety of coping strategies, these did not seem to be effective in the long-term.

KEY TERMS TESOL; EFL; ESL; English language teaching; burnout; Maslach Burnout Inventory; emotional exhaustion; depersonalisation; reduced personal accomplishment; support structures; coping strategies; status of TESOL.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank: The University of South Africa (UNISA) for the generous bursary that enabled me to complete my doctoral studies; Professor Brenda Spencer, my supervisor from the Department of English, for her kindness and patience over the four years of my doctoral degree. Her insightful comments, valuable feedback and knowledge of both English and TESOL have helped to make this dissertation a much tighter and more polished product than I could ever have produced alone; Professor Frederick Snyders, my co-supervisor from the Department of Psychology, who very kindly assisted with advice and feedback on burnout and the methodological aspects of my research; Mrs Claire Beswick, the Head of the Wits Business School Case Centre, who has always demanded the highest standards of writing excellence from her staff. Through her guidance and mentorship I have become a better writer than I ever thought I would be; All of the TESOL teachers that I worked with over the ten years that I was a TESOL teacher. Even though I no longer work as a teacher, I still miss many of you and the good times we shared together; and The participants in this research project who willingly shared such valuable and rich information.

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DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to: My parents, Carol and Jeff and my son, Alex; and All the TESOL teachers I worked with over the years, too many to thank and besides, you know who you are.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration Abstract Acknowledgements Dedication

Page 2 3 4 5

List of figures List of tables List of graphs Appendices

8 8 9 9

Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Background of the study: A global language 1.2 The TESOL industry 1.3 The students of English 1.4 Problem statement 1.4.1 Research questions 1.4.2 Research objectives 1.5 Limitations of the study 1.6 Delimitations of the study 1.7 Definition of terms 1.8 Assumptions 1.9 Significance of the study 1.10 Structure of the thesis

10 15 22 22 33 33 34 34 35 36 36 37

Chapter 2 Literature review 2.1 Introduction 2.2 The concept of burnout 2.3 Teacher stress and burnout 2.4 The status of the TESOL industry 2.5. TESOL teacher stress and burnout 2.6 Support structures 2.7 Coping strategies 2.8 Conclusion

39 41 43 54 64 73 76 83

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Chapter 3 Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Aims of the research study 3.3 Chapter overview 3.4 Research design: Mixed Methods Research 3.4.1 quan→QUAL research design 3.5 Phase One: The quantitative phase (The survey) 3.6 Phase Two: The qualitative phase (Semi-structured interviews) 3.7 Methodology 3.7.1 Data collection 3.7.2 Research instruments 3.7.2.1 Phase One: The quantitative phase 3.7.2.1.1 Reliability of the MBI 3.7.2.1.2 Validity of the MBI 3.7.2.1.3 Limitations of the MBI 3.7.2.2 Phase Two: The qualitative phase 3.7.2.2.1 Reliability of semi-structured interviews 3.7.2.2.2 Validity of semi-structured interviews 3.7.2.2.3 Limitations of interviews 3.8 Data 3.8.1 Subjects 3.8.2 Data analysis 3.8.3 Description of analytical techniques 3.8.3.1 Phase One: MBI-ES data analysis 3.8.3.2 Phase Two: Semi-structured interview data analysis 3.9 Limitations 3.10 Ethical considerations 3.11 Pilot study 3.12 Conclusion Chapter 4 Research findings 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Research findings for part one: Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey 4.2.1 Analysis 4.2.2 Sub-conclusions 4.3 Research findings for part two: Semi-structured interviews with TESOL teachers

85 87 88 88 93 98 100 105 105 105 105 110 111 116 117 119 121 125 126 126 128 129 129 130 135 135 137 138

140 140 140 142 143

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4.3.1 Analysis 4.3.1.1 What causes teachers to feel stressed? Major theme 1: The job of teaching o Sub-theme A: Work overload o Sub-theme B: Inadequate training and gaps in subject knowledge o Sub-theme C: Time pressure o Sub-theme D: Student behaviour Major theme 2: Relationships at work o Sub-theme A: Colleagues o Sub-theme B: Administrators o Sub-theme C: Management Major theme 3: Organisational and TESOL-related issues o Sub-theme A: Working conditions o Sub-theme B: Lack of teaching resources o Sub-theme C: Shared spaces o Sub-theme D: Lack of professional development and career advancement 4.3.1.2 What support structures are available? 4.3.1.3 What coping strategies do teachers use? 4.4 Conclusion

143 143 144 144 147 151 154 161 162 167 168 176 176 179 180 183 185 189 195

Chapter 5 Conclusions and recommendations 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Summary of findings 5.3 Conclusions 5.4 Contribution of the research study to the field of TESOL 5.5 Suggestions for further research 5.6 Conclusion

197 200 203 208 213 215

Bibliography

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List of figures Figure 1 A summary of what TESOL teachers working in private language schools find stressful

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List of tables Table 1 Global English Language Market by Revenue 2011

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Table 2 Table 3 Table 4 Table 5

Similarities and differences between TESOL teachers and English teachers in primary and secondary schools 25 Mixed-method design matrix with mixed-method research designs shown in the four cells 94 Categorisation of MBI scores with numerical cut-off points 109 Means and standard deviations for the MBI subscales 109

List of graphs Graph 1 Frequency distribution of the Emotional Exhaustion Subscale 141 Graph 2 Frequency distribution of the Depersonalisation Subscale 141 Graph 3 Frequency distribution of the Personal Accomplishment Subscale 142 Appendices Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3 Appendix 4 Appendix 5 Appendix 6 Appendix 7 Appendix 8

South African universities that offer undergraduate and postgraduate TESOL qualifications Pennington’s list of attitudes, knowledge and skills necessary for English teachers Two extracts from the researcher’s journal Private language school consent form Participant consent form The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey The semi-structured questionnaire Biodata of participants

245 250 251 253 255 257 258 259

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Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Background of the study: A global language English first language speakers can easily take for granted how universally dominant English has become. It is a global language, the lingua franca of modern life, and the language most often taught as a foreign language in over 100 countries around the world (Crystal, 2003)1. According to Crystal (2003), there are approximately 329 million first language English speakers in the world and a further 430 million people who speak English as a second language. Furthermore, Crystal (2003) reports that the British Council2 estimates that there are as many as another billion people learning English as a foreign language. Matsuda (2012) maintains that in total an estimated 1.2 billion to 1.4 billion people are believed to speak English as a second or foreign language. English is the official language for aerial, maritime and international communications, the main working language of international banking, commerce and trade, one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and the most commonly used language in the sciences. English is the dominant language of the Western media and popular culture revealing the influence of the USA and Britain on the global psyche – it is the language of pop songs, soap operas, TV series, blockbuster movies, computer games, and the dominant language of the internet and different forms of social media such as Facebook and Twitter (Graddol, 2000; Seargeant and Swann, 2012). Celente (1997: 298) refers to this dominance of the English language as having the “power to transform ideas, and therefore lives, and therefore societies, and therefore the world.” Furthermore, to be competitive in an increasingly international academic marketplace and to keep abreast of developments in most fields 3 requires a high level of competence in English which has contributed significantly to the spread of the English language (Pennington and Hoekje, 2010: 5). This supports Matsuda (2012) who states that twothirds of the world’s scientists read and write in the English language. Dewey (2007: 333) maintains that “English is like no other language in its current role internationally, indeed like no other at any moment in history…there have been other international languages but English is different: the extent of its diffusion geographically; the enormous cultural diversity of the speakers who use it; and the…varied domains in which it is 1

Although this is an interdisciplinary doctorate, the conventions recommended by the English Studies Department have been adopted. The Harvard referencing system, rather than the APA system, has thus been used consistently in this thesis. 2 The British Council is a public corporation and charity which aims to promote cultural relationships between the people of the UK and other countries, promote a wider knowledge of the UK, promote the advancement of education and develop a wider knowledge of the English language. [Source: www.britishcouncil.org, (accessed 28 February 2012)]. Dewey (2007:345) states that while UK and US-based institutions do not ‘run the show’ globally, they continue to be disproportionately influential. 3 Graddol (2000:9) states that the top ten disciplines that use English as their working language are Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Psychology, Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Medical Science, Sociology, Philosophy and Forestry.

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found and the purposes it serves.” This supports Crystal (2011: 30) who states that English achieved its current dominance due to “a combination of power factors that have influenced the language over a period of 400 years.” There is, however, evidence that the predominance of English is declining in certain areas of the world. Waldern (2009: 81) warns that “The heyday of English may actually be fading” and that there are mitigating factors which have started to impede the spread of the English language. One of the main factors is that the balance of power is shifting away from English-speaking countries such as the USA as a result of the global economic crisis, the result of which has been that other languages such as Arabic, Spanish and Chinese4 are rapidly spreading around the world and extending their influence and practice. On the economic front, India and China are becoming world economic powers while the influence of developing countries such as Brazil and Russia is increasing (Waldern, 2009). This concept is echoed by Spencer (2013: 4) who maintains that “the hegemony of English appears to be on the decline.” Other languages, besides English, such as Chinese, French, German and Spanish are increasingly being taught and used globally (Janus, 1998; Waldern, 2009). This supports Crystal (2011: 30) who notes that the “ratio of native to non-native speakers is changing as the younger generation becomes more bilingual.” Graddol (2006) states that the amount of international business conducted in the English language is decreasing or, at the very least, the dominance of English as an international business language is being called into question. In addition, global migration is higher than ever, and communication is increasingly multilingual. Thus the position of English as the preferred language of the highly educated, international middle class and elite is precarious as younger populations of people are growing up speaking and learning a variety of languages other than English (Graddol, 2006). The advent of new technologies is also spreading the use of other languages. In 2000, English was used in 51% of Internet communication, but by 2005, that figure had dropped to 32% (Waldern, 2009) with part of the reason being that the global news media is now widely available in various languages. Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas (1996: 429) state that there is an increasing shift towards “promoting global linguistic diversity, multilingualism…foreign language learning, and granting linguistic human rights to speakers of all languages” and away from a ‘diffusion of English’ paradigm characterised by a belief in capitalism, science, technology, monolingualism, Americanisation and linguistic, cultural and media imperialism. Phillipson et al. (1996) maintain that the main linguistic rivals to English in the next two decades will be Arabic and Chinese. Thus, while the demand for language learning in a variety of major world languages is increasing, the demand for English language learning in particular may be 4

In 2003, 23% of the global economy GDP was conducted in Chinese, as compared to 18% conducted in English (Graddol, 2006).

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declining. The result of this will ultimately be that the demand for, and value of those who teach English, may begin to decline at some point in the future as well. Despite this, English is and will for the foreseeable future be regarded as a global language due to the sheer breadth of its spread around the world as a result of colonialism (Graddol, 2000) and the depth of its institutionalisation in countries beyond the primary use English-speaking countries. According to Graddol (2000), there are three types of English speakers in the world today: first language or native speakers who generally live in countries in which the dominant culture revolves around English; second or additional-language speakers of English where English is used as one of a repertoire of languages, each used in different contexts, and foreign language speakers of English. In accordance with these three groupings, Kachru (1986) created the concentric circle model which captures the historical and current situation of English in the world. The concentric circle model consists of: The inner circle which refers to countries where English is the primary language, namely Australia, Anglophone Canada, New Zealand, the USA and the UK. These countries are the traditional bases of English and are viewed as norm-providing countries, that is: countries that set the accepted standard of English (Kachru, 1990: 4). Brutt-Griffler (2002) is critical of this view though and maintains that it is a form of linguistic imperialism whereby the inner circle nations are regarded as the sole agents of language spread and ‘correct’ usage. In addition, this view fails to acknowledge the role that non-inner circle countries have played in the development of English globally. Crystal (1997) estimates that the inner circle of English first language speakers consists of approximately 320 to 380 million people; The outer circle which consists of countries where English spread as a result of colonisation and other language contact situations such as Bangladesh, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria, non-Anglophone South Africa5, Papua New Guinea and Singapore (Kachru, 1990: 4 and 1996: 137). According to Crystal (1997), the outer circle is made up of approximately 150 to 300 million people. In these countries, English plays an important ‘second language’ role and the countries are viewed as norm-developing that is: the norms of the inner circle use of English filter down to these countries. However, there is significant regional variation in the language. English tends to be the dominant language in institutional contexts such as the education system, in business and in government. Knowledge of English, therefore, has significant value in outer circle countries with many students from these countries choosing to study abroad. Singh and Doherty (2004: 12) state that “Western universities have become zones of escalating 5

Kachru (1996:137) states that South Africa does not fit neatly into the circle concept as “the sociolinguistic situation is complex and no reliable figures of English-using populations are available, particularly for those who use English as their first language.” Some theorists include English-speaking South Africa as part of the inner circle while other theorists maintain that South Africa is part of the outer circle countries.

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cultural contact as increasingly large numbers of students from former colonised nations enroll in these institutions to acquire a Western education” which they anticipate will result in better employment opportunities at home; The expanding circle in which English is rapidly being acquired as a foreign, additional or international language. These countries were not colonised by the countries of the inner circle and English does not have a ‘special’ function besides being taught as a foreign language due to its use in international communication. The language is viewed as norm-dependent relying on the inner circle countries to provide norms. Expanding circle countries include Brazil, China, Egypt, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and Russia and most of the European continent (Kachru, 1990:4). Crystal (2003) estimates that the expanding circle consists of approximately 100 million to 1 billion people. In 2000, Graddol (2000: 11) predicted that “those who speak English alongside other languages will outnumber first-language speakers and, increasingly, will decide the global future of the language.” Dewey (2007: 345) states that the spread of English internationally has led to the cultures of the inner circle becoming the new “minority cultures.” However, while this may be the case numerically, in practice; the new expanding circle majority does not enjoy mainstream status. Within English language teaching institutions, non-native teachers of English do not find immediate acceptance, are still regarded as the ‘other’ and tend to be marginalised (Dewey, 2007). Kachru’s model has been given important critical treatment in recent years (Dewey, 2007: 350) with critics stating that the “metaphors of inner and outer imply a sense of inclusion and exclusion, with native speakers of English located at the centre and non-native speakers at the periphery.” In addition, Graddol (1997) has commented on the inappropriateness of locating the ‘centre of gravity’ in the domain of the native speaker, undermining attempts by speakers of English as an additional language to appropriate the language for their own purposes. Thus there is a need to modify Kachru’s model to reflect the growing debate and increased awareness of the socio-politics of English use worldwide. However, in line with many scholars of World Englishes and English as a lingua franca, Kachru’s framework is used for ease of reference and in the absence of widespread agreement over an alternative model. Kachru (1986: 134) states that the three circles are not immune to internal power struggles as the inner circle countries such as the USA, the UK and Australia do compete fiercely with each other. This competition is based on several factors which include the ‘selling’ of a particular model of English, the creation of a market for pedagogical and technological materials coupled with the concomitant need to create a market for teachers or ‘experts’ from one’s own country and the drive to seek and attract well-off foreign students from particular regions of the world. According to Kachru (1986: 134), this has resulted in “linguistic paranoia” and the perception

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that the outer and expanding circle countries are playing the inner circle countries off against each other. Thus, Brumfit (1982:7) maintains that “American English may be preferred by countries wishing to express their independence from a traditional British connection...(and) countries too close to the States have been known to turn towards Britain for a change in model and teaching policy for their English...(thus)...the English-speaking world can be played politically by the non-English speaking world.” According to Coleman (2010: 8), “45% of international students are studying in four countries: the USA, the UK, Canada and Australia.” Coleman (2010: 8) maintains that these destinations attract international students because of the “perceived quality of their higher education institutions but also because they use English” which for many students plays an important role in their future employment opportunities and international mobility. This supports Matsuda (2012) who estimates that 52% of international university students are taught in English. Graddol (2000: 44) maintains that English is the most popular modern language studied worldwide, for example, in the Russian Federation, 60% of secondary school students study English while only 25% study German and 15% study French. In Europe, 60% of secondary school students chose to study English, 30% chose French and 5% chose German. According to the British Council, the number of English language learners will peak in the next decade at a staggering two billion. Therefore, the need for instruction at all levels of English learning and the consequent demand for TESOL teachers is, and will for the foreseeable future, be enormous. Nunan (2003: 591) agrees stating that “Few TESOL professionals can deny seeing the day to day results of the socio-political phenomenon of global English…governments around the world are introducing English as a compulsory subject at younger and younger ages. In business, industry and government, workers are increasingly expected to develop proficiency in English.” These demands for English offer opportunities for the TESOL profession but at the same time they have created many challenges for TESOL educators internationally. According to Griffith (2005: 4), the range of locations and situations in which English is in demand covers an enormous spectrum. She states that, if English teaching “is booming in Kazakhstan and Laos and Guatemala, there can be few corners of the world to which English has not penetrated.” Prospects for hopeful TESOL teachers are thus excellent with quite literally hundreds of international schools throughout the world offering a range of English courses from beginners to advanced, from Aviation English and Academic English to Business English and English for doctors, lawyers and scientists, from examination preparation for IELTS6 and

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The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is one of the world’s leading tests of English reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. IELTS is accepted by over 6000 institutions around the world including universities, immigration departments, government agencies, and multinational companies. IELTS is offered through over 800 test centres in over 130 countries. [Source: www.ielts.org, (accessed 28 February 2012)].

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TOEFL7 to general English conversation classes. Thus Pennington et al. (2010: 6) state that “Language study has become a prime driver of international educational exchange.” This raises the question of whether the TESOL industry, locally and internationally, is ready for this deluge of students eager to learn English for academic, social and professional purposes and how the myriad of private language schools, small and large, will support the teachers, personally and professionally, for whom it will become an increasingly daunting task to meet the needs of such a divergent and extensive discipline. The attempt by teachers to meet this world-wide demand for English instruction may be at great cost to the teachers concerned. This thesis explores the emotional cost to teachers’ operating in the TESOL context. 1.2 The TESOL industry The term, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) is an inclusive term which refers to both the teaching of English as a foreign language (TEFL) and the Teaching of English as a second language (TESL). The term TESOL is used in this thesis to refer to all aspects of English language teaching to students who are not first language speakers of English. The Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) is thus a specialised form of English teaching. It differs from mainstream English teaching in primary and secondary schools in that it has a much narrower focus with the broad aims being to assist students in achieving general or specialised competence in the language by focusing on teaching the four skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking in English, accompanied by explicit grammar instruction, the pronunciation of English and vocabulary building. There are many different types of TESOL teachers ranging from those who teach English to foreign students who live in, or are from countries where English is not spoken as an official language such as Brazil, China or Russia, to teachers who teach English improvement skills to adult students of English as an additional-language and teachers who are part of the primary and secondary school system focusing on developing English language skills in children for whom English is not their first language. TESOL teachers, therefore, work in a variety of contexts ranging from primary and secondary schools to university-affiliated and private language schools. Private language schools may be part of an international organisation with multiple branches worldwide and a central recruiting mechanism (Pennington et al., 2010:9) such as International House which has 150 language schools in 50 countries, Eurocentres which has a worldwide network of language schools and English First which has 41 international language centres. Schools may also be run on a much smaller scale and wholly-owned by local, independent operators. A large number of TESOL teachers also work as private tutors. 7

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) is one of the most widely respected English tests in the world. The TOEFL is recognised by over 8500 universities, colleges, immigration departments, medical and licensing agencies in over 130 countries. TOEFL is offered at 4500 testing locations in over 165 countries. [Source: www.ets.org, (accessed 28 February 2012)].

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In South Africa, there are strict entry requirements8 to the field of teaching English within the primary and secondary school system hence university-affiliated and private language schools are the main employers of TESOL teachers. It is for this reason, and due to the researcher’s personal experience of working in a private language school, that this research study focuses on TESOL teachers who work for private language schools. English language teaching (ELT) is a cross-cultural, inter-disciplinary field that has expanded and developed significantly in the global context over the past thirty years. It has connections with cultural anthropology, education, linguistics, psychology and sociology to name but a few disciplines. The expansion and development of English language teaching has occurred alongside historical, political, social and cultural developments that are continuing to shape our world (Neilsen, Gitsaki and Honan, 2007). Luke (2008) states that the development of the field of TESOL was actually a historical response to two phenomena: the post-Second World War decolonization of non-English speaking countries and the global flow of immigrants and political refugees to post-industrial countries. This has led to the creation of a growing service industry in language teaching. Furthermore, the postwar expansion of Anglo-American economic power and technologically-driven mass communication has gone hand in hand with the spread of English as a global lingua franca.9 Consequently the push and pull dynamics of globalization has led to the regional and transnational expansion of English language teaching. Thus, according to Neilsen et al. (2007), TESOL teachers are part of a large and complex cycle of money and technology, spanning state and private education, private sector business and the global tourist industry. My experience of ten years of working as a TESOL teacher at a private language school has shown me that for many people TESOL is a career that appeals to those who wish to travel, who dislike routine and embrace variety and change and who wish to be involved in education but not within the bureaucracy and confines of the formal schooling system. Some school leavers complete a TESOL course during a gap year and go on to teach English overseas for a few years before embarking on a university degree and a formal career, others ‘stumble’ onto TESOL by accident after hearing about English teaching from friends and acquaintances while still others enter the field because a job opportunity unexpectedly presents itself. For some, TESOL represents a welcome career change after a crisis in their previous careers or personal lives and 8

To be permitted to work in the South African primary and secondary school system, one has to either hold an undergraduate degree with appropriate teaching subjects and a one-year (full-time) Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) or hold a four-year (full-time) Bachelor of Education degree. All teachers working in the South African school system need to be registered with the South African Council of Educators (SACE). 9 The term English as a lingua franca (ELF) is used to refer to communication in English between speakers with different first languages. In most cases, a lingua franca is a ‘contact’ language between people who do not share a common first language or a common culture. Thus English is the preferred foreign language of communication (Seidlhofer 2005: 339).

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others see the field as a way of earning income after retirement. In many cases, teaching English is one of the few forms of employment open to people if they want to remain overseas, making their choice to enter the TESOL field a strategic one. In many countries, English teaching is the most easily attainable type of employment and often, the only employment available to foreigners. Griffith (2005: 8-9) states that there are five ‘types’ of people who can generally be found teaching English: “the serious career teacher, the student of the host country’s prevailing language and culture who teaches in order to fund a longer stay, the long-term traveller who wants to prolong and fund their travels, the philanthropic teacher who is sponsored by an aid organisation, charity or mission society and finally, the teacher who embarks on this adventure to ‘find’ themselves.” While many people regard TESOL as mainly a form of temporary employment and not as a viable career choice, the fact of the matter is that the global TESOL industry is becoming an increasingly lucrative field all around the world. In a 2011 Global Market Report of the English Language Teaching market commissioned by The British Council, the total number of students studying English at the top 8 language teaching destinations was 1,500, 240 students representing a total revenue of $11.6 billion. (See Table 1 for a breakdown of the 2011 Global English Language Market by Revenue). Table 1: Global English Language Market by Revenue 2011* Country % global market share Revenue derived from English Language Teaching United Kingdom 35% $4,078,516,960 United States of America 25% $2,917,670,700 Canada 19% $2,143,392,703 Australia 14% $1,612,675,453 Ireland 3.5% $391,385,197 New Zealand 2% $255,075,352 Malta 1% $144,555,584 South Africa 0.5% $68,910,438 [Source: Special Report: The Global Market 2011, Study Travel Magazine, Dec 2012, pg 28 -32.] * The 2011 figures are the latest available figures

In South Africa, there are a number of university-affiliated language schools situated on university campuses and a great number of private language schools with the vast majority being in the Western and Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-Natal provinces. There are, however, an increasing number of private language schools in Gauteng province, particularly in the business hubs of Johannesburg and Pretoria. South Africa is thus increasingly being viewed as a costeffective alternative for foreign students who would, in the past, have chosen to study English

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in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK or the USA. South Africa has a favourable exchange rate compared to other English language learning destinations, a relatively low cost of living, many opportunities for sightseeing and travel, a sporty, outdoor lifestyle, world-class educational institutions and multi-cultural richness. Foreign students entering South Africa in order to learn English thus represent a significant source of income for private language schools, tourist attractions, student accommodation and bed and breakfast establishments. In addition to learning English, many foreign students travel around South Africa and may even extend their stay or their course. Furthermore, a large number of these students come to South Africa to learn English with the goal of embarking on university studies once they have achieved competence in English. As most universities require international students to pay in advance for their studies, this represents significant revenue for local universities. Despite this growth, the TESOL industry continues to be unregulated in South Africa and indeed, worldwide. In an interview with Study Travel Magazine (2011: 28), Shaun Fitzhenry of Education South Africa10 (EduSA) states that South Africa’s ELT industry “suffers from some major hurdles such as the continued lack of formal government accreditation and recognition.” There are a number of TESOL organisations which set standards for the industry but have no enforcing status. Organisations such as Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)11 , based in the USA, aim to advance professional expertise in English language teaching by means of a range of activities such as publishing journals, organising international conferences and offering support to TESOL teachers. The International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL)12, also based in the USA, aims to link, develop and support English language teaching professionals throughout the world. The organisation offers a range of publications to members, an annual international conference, special interest groups, scholarships and links to associated professional organisations. At this stage, there is no official body that regulates language schools in South Africa although the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) is in the process of accrediting all educational institutions in the country. The TESOL industry is thus lucrative but unregulated and deeply affected by local and international economic, political and social events which create a great deal of volatility. This in turn results in the uncertainty endemic to the industry. The people most directly affected by this uncertainty are the TESOL teachers because language schools often employ teachers 10

EduSA is the national association of English language centres in South Africa. The main aims of the organisation are to promote the English language travel industry and ensure minimum standards of professionalism and quality for member schools. [Source: www.edusouthafrica.com, (accessed 28 January 2013)]. 11 Founded in 1966. 12 IATEFL was founded in the UK in 1967. The organisation has nearly 4000 members in 100 countries around the world. [Source: www.iatefl.org, (accessed 12 March 2012)].

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contractually on a course-by-course basis dependent on student numbers. Data gleaned from annual market analysis conducted by Language Travel Magazine13, a business publication about studying abroad for students and professionals, reveals the effect of external factors on the TESOL industry such as civil war and other political and social upheavals, economic downturns, epidemics, negative press reports, tighter immigration controls and visa regulations. According to annual questionnaires sent by the Language Travel Magazine to ten participating language schools14, 4 632 foreign students attended English language courses at the ten participating schools in 2003, of which the top six nationalities were German, Swiss, Korean, Saudi Arabian, Brazilian and Japanese. 86% of the students were between the ages of 19 and 50 years old with an average length of stay of 8 weeks. In 2004, South Africa became more popular as a cheap language learning destination due to an aggressive marketing drive combining language learning with tourism. There was an increase in student registrations despite volatile global events such as the outbreak of SARS, the invasion of Iraq by the USA and allied forces and terrorist attacks in Riyadh and Casablanca. In total, 5 296 students enrolled at the various schools with the top six nationalities being German, Swiss, Korean, French, Brazilian and Italian. Of these students, 81% were between 19 and 50 years old with an average length of stay of 7 weeks. In 2005, due to world events such as the terror attacks in London and Egypt, the Bali bombings, further bombings in Delhi and Jordan, the Kashmir earthquake and the Cronulla riots in Sydney, Australia, there was a sharp decrease in the number of students attending English classes at the various schools in South Africa with a total registration of just 3 182 students. The top six nationalities were Swiss, Angolan, Chinese, German, Korean and Austrian. Although student numbers decreased overall, there was a large increase in student numbers from Angola and China and the average length of stay increased to 12 weeks with 72% of students between the ages of 19 and 50 years old. An interesting finding was that there was a sharp increase in the 12-18 year age group with 21% of students being 18 years old or below. In 2006, 6 689 foreign students registered at the ten private language schools with the top six nationalities being Angolan, German, Swiss, Brazilian, Chinese and Mozambican. Thus there was a major increase in Angolan students with many of these students aiming to register at universities in South Africa. The increase in overall student numbers could also be attributed to the outbreak of Avian Flu in the UK which may have led many students to choose South Africa

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Available online: http://www.hothousemedia.com/ltm/ The following private language schools participate in the annual market study: Cape Studies, English First, Eurocentres, International House, Interlink School of English, Kurus English, LAL, Language Teaching Centre, Good Hope Studies and Wits Language School. [Source: www.hothousemedia.com, (accessed 13 July 2011)]. 14

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as a preferable destination. Of the students registered, 85% were between the ages of 19 and 50 staying for an average of 10 weeks. In 2007, there was a decrease in student numbers with 5 615 students registered at the various institutions with the top six nationalities being German, Swiss, Saudi Arabian, Chinese, Turkish and Korean. There was a dramatic reduction in the number of Angolan students and an increase in Saudi Arabian students. The average length of stay was 8 weeks with 87% of the students between the ages of 19 and 50 years old. In 2008, there was an even further reduction in student numbers with 3 615 foreign students registered at the various schools. The decrease in student numbers over 2007 and 2008, particularly from other African countries, may have been due to the ongoing xenophobic attacks in South Africa at that time. The top six nationalities were Brazilian, Korean, German, Swiss, Saudi Arabian and Chinese. Of these students, 82% were between 19 and 50 years old staying in the country for an average of 8 weeks. In 2009, the low student numbers continued with a registration of only 3 852 students of which the top six nationalities were Brazilian, Korean, German, Swiss, Turkish and Saudi Arabian. Of these students, 85% were between 19 and 50 years old and stayed in the country for an average of 9 weeks. In 2010, due to the soccer World Cup in South Africa, there was a large increase in registrations with 7 890 foreign students registered at the ten language schools. The top six nationalities were Congolese, Korean, German, Gabonese, Chinese and Brazilian. Thus there was a sharp increase in students from other African countries. The students stayed in the country for an average of 15 weeks with 76% of the students between 19 and 50 years old. In 2011, 7 645 students registered at the various language schools, however, due to the global economic downturn, there were fewer students from central and Eastern Europe. The top six nationalities were Congolese, Brazilian, Chinese, Angolan, Swiss and Korean with 81% between the ages of 19 and 50 years old. The average length of stay was 10 weeks. Thus the field of TESOL tends to be precarious as shown by the fluctuations in local student numbers which have a direct impact on employment opportunities for TESOL teachers and the length of that employment. This supports a British Council review (2006: 1) of the global ELT market which states that “the English Language sector is volatile, impacted by external factors such as currency fluctuations, the threat of terrorism, pandemics...or government legislation.” There is, therefore, a temptation in this context to employ short-term contract employees but there is little academic merit in doing so. Despite this uncertainty, TESOL is a prolific research area with a plethora of journals and areas of specialisation. Most research in TESOL has, however, focused on the linguistic and

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methodological aspects of the field, that is, on the teaching of the English language and not on the nature of the industry or the teachers. Simon-Maeda (2004: 406) states that “Teacher training has traditionally emphasised instructional methods and proficiency measures while ignoring the realities of teachers’ lives both inside and outside the classroom.” Thus the contributions and experiences of TESOL teachers have been overlooked (Neilsen et al., 2007). According to Kassagby, Boraie and Schmidt (2001: 227), there is little information in the applied linguistics literature about what “makes English language teachers tick – their motivations, goals and their views on what teaching does and should offer to people who make a career of it.” All around the world teachers of TESOL express not only great satisfaction with, but also deep dissatisfaction about, their work. Among the satisfactions commonly voiced about a career in TESOL are the opportunities for travelling the world, the interactions with people of different cultures, and the chance to teach the English language in creative and exciting ways (Pennington, 1995). Florez (1997) thus maintains that many TESOL teachers view themselves as intrinsically motivated and focused on rewards that are less tangible than those of financial compensation or professional recognition. These teachers rather perceive themselves as focused on social service, creativity, connectedness to others and a sense of personal accomplishment. English language teaching is a truly global field and Griffith (2005) adds that the rewards of teaching English to those who wish to learn the language are self-evident and range from learning about, being immersed in and becoming integrated with a foreign culture, gaining insight into different people, cultures and lifestyles, a feeling of self-reliance and the fact that English teaching serves as a convenient base for foreign travel. At the same time, there is much dissatisfaction among teachers of TESOL ranging from complaints about the depressingly low salaries and almost universal lack of benefits to inadequate recognition on, and of the job, coupled with chronic job insecurity and in some cases, gross exploitation. Sun (2010: 142) states that TESOL teachers are generally “disenchanted with their working conditions” and deeply concerned about inequitable workloads, undesirable working conditions, low pay, job insecurity and a lack of professional development and support. Griffith (2005: 11) maintains that “as competition for jobs has increased, working conditions have not improved…there is a growing tendency for teachers to be offered non-contract freelance work, with no guarantee of hours.” Furthermore, exploitation of teachers is common as the field is hampered by a lack of regulation and unionisation worldwide. It is, therefore, difficult for TESOL teachers to sustain a long-term commitment to the field in the face of employment instability, salaries which are not market-related, a lack of benefits and

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inconsistent professional development. This gloomy situation is exacerbated by a general lack of support of TESOL teachers from the management and administration of private language schools, serious concerns about the status of TESOL as a profession and the devaluing of the field due to the propensity of many private language schools to employ temporary, ‘backpacker’ teachers on short-term employment contracts (Mullock, 2009). Thus this ‘downside’ of TESOL lays the foundation for stressful working conditions which can lead to teacher burnout and which is the topic of this thesis. 1.3 The students of English This research study specifically focuses on those who teach English to foreign students who have come to South Africa to improve their English language skills for the purposes of academic study or work. There are various reasons why foreign students come to South Africa to study English: the vast majority of students choose to learn English or to improve their competence in English so as to enrol in a course of study at a South African college or university or to improve their chances of obtaining more lucrative employment in their countries due to their English ability. Some students have no or very limited English and start at beginners level with the goal of progressing to advanced level and then on to the IELTS or TOEFL examinations. Other students are accompanying their spouses who are skilled professionals working on a contract basis in South Africa and as unemployed, accompanying spouses generally may not work. They thus decide to improve their English language skills. Still others are taking a gap year, may be visiting relatives in South Africa or are relatives of foreign people already working in South Africa. In my experience of ten years in the TESOL industry, the vast majority of these students enrol in private or university-affiliated language schools. 1.4 Problem statement The TESOL field, therefore, is in the unique situation of being not only an academic field struggling for recognition and status but also a lucrative business field with a multitude of private operators spread all over the world and no authoritative, unifying body. In the rush to market schools as potential study destinations for foreign students, the TESOL teachers and their needs are not high on the agenda and yet they deserve attention as it is not an easy task to teach a language to groups of students of varying ages, educational levels and different cultures in a short-course format. Thus the potential for stress and burnout is high. It is well-documented that teachers generally experience considerable stress caused by factors inside and outside the classroom (Coombe, 2008; Grasse, 1982; Kyriacou, 1987; Markham, Green and Ross, 1996; Maslach and Jackson, 1981; Mullock, 2009; Pennington and Ho, 1992 and Sass, Seal and Martin, 2011). It follows that TESOL teachers must also experience high stress levels. Stress can be caused by factors inside the classroom such as student behaviour, student complaints, assessment procedures, peer and supervisor observations and time

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constraints on language courses. Stress can also be caused by factors outside the classroom such as lesson preparation, administration, test creation and marking, competition among teachers for jobs and status and conditions of employment such as short-term contracts, a lack of benefits and low salaries. Grasse (1982: 5) states that TESOL teachers experience high stress levels due to “unrealistic expectations for results on the part of parents, sponsors15, administrators and students” and a lack of classroom communication due to students’ restricted target language proficiency. Furthermore, TESOL teachers’ may experience stress due to the limited number of jobs available for TESOL teachers in private language schools and the fact that these teachers often experience job insecurity, holding temporary positions with low pay and no benefits. Pennington et al. (1992) maintain that TESOL teachers exhibit a high level of concern about pay, benefits, opportunities for advancement and professional status. Stress and consequent burnout are risks for all teachers. However, it is important to recognise that while there are similarities between the experiences of those who teach English in primary and secondary schools in South Africa specifically16 and those who teach TESOL, the differences may be far greater (See Table 2 for the similarities and differences between TESOL teachers and English teachers in primary and secondary schools). According to Mullock (2009), TESOL teachers can be differentiated from primary and secondary school teachers because many of them discover TESOL by sheer accident, enter the field to try it out and consequently discover their passion, even though the individual may not have had a lifelong ambition to teach. Palmer (1998) states that good teaching, regardless of what or where one teaches, revolves around having a sense of identity and integrity coupled with the desire to seek connectedness between one’s students, oneself and one’s subject matter and, according to Mullock (2009), teachers at all levels of education have more in common than might be supposed. Borg (2006: 5; 13-17), however, maintains that various factors do distinguish the experience of TESOL teachers, and in fact, foreign language teachers in general, from that of teachers of other subjects. These factors include: The nature of the subject matter as TESOL teaching is the only subject where effective instruction requires the teacher to use a medium the students do not yet understand; The content of the teaching as TESOL is unique in scope and complexity. Teaching English to foreign students extends far beyond the four skills and includes not only the

15

A sponsor undertakes to pay a student’s fees at an educational institution. In the USA, TESOL teachers form part of the primary and secondary school system in many cases. This is not the case in South Africa. 16

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‘culture’ of the language but also knowledge from different fields such as education, politics, history, literature and linguistics; The methodology of TESOL teaching is diverse and aimed at constantly creating contexts for communication and maximising student involvement. For effective instruction, TESOL teachers look for ways of providing extracurricular activities through which naturalistic and practical learning environments can be created. Such activities are less of a necessity in other subjects; Teacher-student relationships tend to be informal and there is greater communication between teachers and students and more scope for students to work on themes which are of personal relevance. In addition, effective TESOL instruction requires certain interaction patterns such as group work and communicative activities which are desirable but not necessary for effective instruction in other subjects; The subject and the medium for teaching it are the same, especially in multilingual groups where English is the only common language; Incorrect student output is accommodated with TESOL teachers acknowledging student errors as part of the learning process. Borg (2006) states that the only other subject where student errors are seen as a desirable part of the learning process is mathematics; Oral production plays a central role as, more than in any other subject, speaking is fundamental to language learning and teaching; TESOL teaching is often a political activity as language teaching generally has a dimension of power and control, inducting learners into ways of thinking and being which reflect those of the target culture. The field, unlike most other subjects, is driven by commercial forces and an enormous, global private sector. In addition, TESOL is characterised by a proliferation of teaching and learning resources which is unparalleled in other subjects; The range of competing methodologies and methodological shifts in English language teaching over the years outweighs similar phenomena in other subject areas which tend to be more static; TESOL teaching is the only subject in which a distinction between native and non-native teachers17 is explicitly made and where professionally trained non-native teachers are often compared unfavourably to native speakers even when the native speakers do not hold similar professional qualifications; and There is a lack of standardised entry requirements into the field as there are a wide range of qualifications for and routes into TESOL. In many places in the world, the basic qualification for working as a TESOL teacher is a 4-week certificate course while other 17

Commonly known as NNEST’s [Non-Native English Speaking Teachers].

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institutions and countries insist on TESOL teachers who hold at least Masters-level qualifications in English language teaching. Thus, it is vital to recognise that there are certain factors in the TESOL industry that simply do not exist in the experience of primary and secondary school teachers of English. There are factors unique to the experience of teaching TESOL that lead to different causes of stress and burnout for TESOL teachers. Research on teacher stress in general informs this study and forms a foundation for the study but the uniqueness of the TESOL experience cannot be underestimated. In addition to Borg’s (2006) analysis above, Table 218 highlights what the researcher maintains are the similarities and differences between TESOL teachers and English teachers in primary and secondary schools. Table 2: Similarities and Differences between TESOL Teachers and English Teachers in Primary and Secondary Schools TESOL teachers English teachers in primary and secondary schools Similarities19 Both groups: Stand in front of a class of students and teach various English language skills using a lesson plan (a written or a mental map of the lesson). Prepare for lessons and perform a range of administrative tasks such as setting and marking tests and assignments and writing progress reports. Assess students’ ability by various means including assignments, projects, tests and examinations. Need to learn how to control and discipline disruptive students. Work and interact with students, colleagues and the management of a school. Experience stress and burnout. Differences In private language schools in South Africa, Primary and secondary school English teachers TESOL teachers teach students who are teach students between 5 and 19 years old. regarded as adults (from age 16 onwards). The students are treated and regarded as children. TESOL teachers teach one subject with a relatively narrow focus. English language skills are taught with a focus on the acquisition of 18

School teachers are generally qualified to teach more than one subject and teach a broader English curriculum ranging from

Note. The information in this table is based on the researcher’s experience of being a TESOL teacher in a private language school for ten years. 19 The inclusion of similarities supports the argument that TESOL teachers perform similar work in many ways to English teachers in more traditional educational contexts. TESOL should thus be viewed as a legitimate sector of English teaching.

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language structures and communication. The courses, especially at advanced levels, may include literature and poetry but generally the aim is to develop and improve the use of English for communicative purposes. TESOL teachers’ often share classrooms or have to use communal areas as classrooms. There is often no teaching space to personalise and little ownership of the teaching space. TESOL teachers’ often have an inadequate support network within the school which may lead to a lack of collegiality and communality. TESOL teachers’ work in small, private schools in an unregulated industry. There is a tendency to isolation. However, as TESOL teachers all teach the same subject; opportunities are created for the sharing of resources and information and the possibility of cooperative ventures. TESOL teachers’ often lack resource material due to the cost of such material and may have to make their own or purchase their own classroom resource material. Thus they have to learn to be creative with minimal resources.

language and writing skills to in-depth analysis of literature and poetry.

Generally primary and secondary school English teachers have their own classrooms which they can personalise. Primary and secondary school teachers’ may have a greater support network available in the school system. Schools tend to be standardised, regulated and are often unionised. However, school teachers all teach different subjects so English teachers may only have a few colleagues who teach the same subject. Thus the possibility of experiencing feelings of isolation exists.

Primary and secondary schools in the same urban areas of Johannesburg as private and university-affiliated language schools are more likely to have adequate resource material for teachers. In state schools, much of this resource material is supplied by the Department of Education. TESOL classrooms tend to be informal and English classes in primary and secondary relaxed. Teachers may play music in class and schools are more formal than TESOL classes conversation and chatting in English is and tend to be based on a foundation of encouraged. The curriculum is not discipline and rules. State and private schools standardised nationally and schools are free to follow a nationally standardised curriculum choose their own study material. Teachers although there is some freedom in the choice have closer and often social relationships with of textbooks. Teachers have formal and students who are generally adults. Teacherstrongly controlled relationships with students student outings may range from visiting and these relationships are always based on tourist attractions to going for coffee or school activities such as academics, cultural attending parties together. Borg (2006: 22) activities and sport. states in TESOL classes, “students often speak about their experiences and lives and a strict, formal and impersonal attitude on the part of the teacher would counteract attempts to engage students in meaningful

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communication.” TESOL teachers generally set assessments and decide how and when to assess their students. Coordinators and supervisors may offer only minimal guidelines. TESOL classes consist of students of different ages, nationalities and cultures. Teachers need to learn how to teach in a multi-aged and multi-cultural environment. Students cannot be forced to do homework although assignments and tests do count towards a pass mark. It is also difficult to force students to participate in classroom activities such as group work if they do not want to. As long as students meet the basic course requirements, they will pass to the next level. There are often students of varying learning abilities in one class. This is exacerbated by the fact that teachers have no access to the learning record of individual students. Some students are not literate in their first language and TESOL teachers also have to cope with adults with learning disabilities. This supports Neilsen (2011) who discovered that due to civil war in certain countries such as Angola, students may have missed several years of education and were not literate in their first language or the official languages of their countries. TESOL teachers may have to cope with disruptive adult students. There is often no recourse for the teacher as the student is an adult who has paid for a course of study. It is very rare for a private language school to ask a student to leave. TESOL teachers are expected to provide entertaining lessons which stimulate interest, and create an atmosphere of fun and levity while also motivating students and staying in touch with what is interesting and relevant to people of a wide range of ages and cultures. This supports Prodromou (1991) who cites

English teachers in primary and secondary schools follow a standardised assessment system based on formal outcomes. Students are the same age, or within a year or two of it. There is some cultural diversity but the vast majority of students are of the same nationality and tend to have similar backgrounds. Teachers expect the students to complete homework and there are consequences for not doing homework such as detention. Students can be forced to participate in various classroom activities. In addition, students are expected to meet and exceed the course requirements. Students with learning disabilities will not be educated in mainstream primary and secondary education. Teachers have access to students’ school records and students are generally literate in their first language.

Teachers have to be able to cope with disruptive students. However, primary and secondary school teachers can inform the head of department or principal of the school about the problem. Students are bound by a disciplinary code. School teachers teach what they teach; it is not really relevant if the students find the lessons boring as primary and secondary school students are a captive audience.

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TESOL teacher characteristics valued by students as including being friendly, telling jokes, playing games and acting like a ‘comedian.’ If students feel that the lessons are boring, they can and will complain to the course coordinator. TESOL teachers experience little or no contractual security. It is very rare to find a permanent position in TESOL with benefits such as a medical aid and pension fund. Salaries are determined by the language school and market conditions. Thus conditions of employment can be ambiguous and stressful. Furthermore, TESOL teachers are often viewed as having low-status by students and by colleagues in other disciplines. TESOL teachers struggle to find full-time, wellpaid and long-term employment in South Africa. There are no personnel agencies that specialise in TESOL positions and teachers often have to rely on word of mouth in order to find work. Local positions are generally not advertised in newspapers while international positions are almost always advertised online. It is easier to find employment as a TESOL teacher internationally than in South Africa. There are also a limited number of private and university-affiliated language schools with a very limited number of vacancies, many of which are short-term contracts.

School teachers experience less difficulty finding full-time employment. Generally teachers are offered several benefits including medical aid and pension. Salaries tend to be more standardised and regulated and working conditions tend to be unaffected by market conditions over a period of time. Primary and secondary school teachers have greater protection, more status in society, may be unionised and tend to have better working conditions overall. School teachers have a range of resources to assist them in finding employment from personnel agencies that specialise in teaching jobs to lists of school vacancies released by the various education departments. Schools tend to be close-knit communities so word of mouth may play a vital role in finding employment. The sheer number of schools nationwide also ensures that there are, at any time, vacancies for English teachers.

Many TESOL teachers, therefore, work in vulnerable employment contexts with conditions that have the potential to be stressful. Very few have full-time employment with benefits as most are employed on short-term contracts, often on a part-time basis, with low salaries and at the mercy of economic and political whims and changes. This erroneously reinforces the gypsy-like reputation of TESOL teachers but job mobility is not necessarily their own choice (Mullock, 2009). This lack of employment stability contrasts with mainstream primary and secondary school education in South Africa where teachers may stay in teaching institutions for far longer periods of time.

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Stress, if prolonged and unchecked, can lead to burnout. According to the researcher and based on the researcher’s personal experience of working as a TESOL teacher in a private language school, the stressors that affect TESOL teachers can be divided into three broad categories: Firstly, stress that occurs as a result of individual factors and perceptions. This includes: The realisation that one’s TESOL training, which often consists of a four-week long basic certificate course, is inadequate preparation for the realities of the classroom; The discrepancy between the reality of teaching and what is expected from a TESOL teacher by the management of a private language school in terms of achieving outcomes. This is often contrary to one’s idealistic notions of what teaching English would be like. This supports Wedell (2004: 2) who states that “there is a significant gulf between statements of what outcomes the curriculum is intended to achieve and the classroom realities”; and Concerns about gaps in one’s knowledge particularly of English grammar and how to overcome this in a short period of time. An inadequate knowledge of English grammar, particularly at the intermediate and advanced levels of ELT and how to explain complex grammar points in a simple manner is a challenge for many TESOL teachers. Straker (2007: 79) investigated English foreign language teachers’ attitudes towards the explicit teaching of grammar. He found that the teachers considered explicit grammar teaching “central and fundamental” to TESOL teaching. Part of the problem is that most first language English speakers have acquired the language naturally and have not been taught English grammar explicitly. Andrews (1999: 146) states that native speaker teachers are likely to be more proficient users of English, however, “their explicit knowledge of grammar and grammar terminology may be seriously deficient.” Foreign students often have an advanced knowledge of English grammar which can lead to considerable stress in the classroom as teachers find their grammar explanations ‘corrected’ and questioned by their students. Borg (2001:21) states that teachers who do not have an adequate grasp of English grammar tend to avoid teaching grammar whenever possible and if given no choice, will adopt a teacher-centred ‘lecturing’ style rather than a student-centred style which could lead them into the “unknown territory” of having to answer students’ questions. Furthermore, in subjects such as mathematics and science, many students learn and apply formulae without worrying about the underlying rationale. In contrast TESOL teachers are “under pressure from students to explain the rationale” for grammar rules (Borg, 2006:18). Secondly, stress that arises inside the classroom. This arises mainly from the dynamics of the student-teacher relationship and includes the following stressors:

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Adults exhibit much insecurity in the classroom and can be just as disruptive as children. This disruptiveness can include arguing with the teacher and fellow students, refusing to participate in group work, speaking activities and games, consistently speaking in their home language in the classroom and refusing to do homework and assignments. Kumaravadivelu (2003: 3) refers to this as “a perennial discipline problem” in which adult students’ exhibit behaviour that is aggressive, disobedient and disruptive. McDonough (1994: 61), in an analysis of TESOL teachers’ diaries cites one teacher’s description as follows, “Perhaps learning a foreign language away from home reduces you to a child-like state of demanding more attention than everyone else – men seem particularly prone to this behaviour…and regress to the level of children…and want to be constantly reassured”; Students may complain about a teacher to fellow students or to the management of the school rather than approach the teacher concerned. This is a concern when teachers are in a precarious employment situation as too many complaints can result in a teacher’s contract not being renewed. Li (2003: 1) states that complaints are often unjustified and tend to result from students’ discomfort with “interactive or spontaneous teaching approaches typical of TESOL teaching techniques such as group work, games and the use of puzzles, pictures and role plays which are…incompatible with many students’ (conservative) ideas of what constitutes good learning and teaching”; Students who are alone in South Africa and who experience culture shock may not respect the ‘distance’ in the teacher-student relationship and that the teachers’ primary role is to teach English. The result is that teachers often find themselves embroiled in and trying to assist with visa problems, banking and other financial difficulties and accommodation and transport dilemmas. Thus TESOL teachers often become substitute parents or are viewed as general ‘go-to’ people. This can place teachers in a stressful situation where so much time is spent assisting students with the various problems arising out of living in a foreign country that a teacher’s ability to provide quality instruction is compromised. This supports González (2003) who in research on the professional needs of Columbian TESOL teachers discovered that the teachers listed dealing with students’ social problems as one of the most stressful aspects of being a TESOL teacher; Students often have erroneous beliefs about language learning including the belief that grammar drills and exercises are more important than practicing actual communicative skills such as speaking and listening. This is often coupled with the erroneous belief that one can become fluent in a language in a few weeks; and Administrative tasks such as the submission of weekly reports, class progress reports, various forms of assessment and attendance registers are required. In addition, private

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language schools often over-assess students due to concerns about maintaining quality teaching and testing standards. This results in an overload of marking which is normally done in the teachers’ free time. This leads to too much time being spent on testing students and not enough time spent on actual teaching. In addition, testing may be inconsistent and at private language schools may not be based on recognised tests with teachers of varying abilities and qualifications creating their own tests which leads to a lack of standardisation and quality. Thirdly, stress that arises outside the classroom, within the organisation, including interactions with colleagues, administrators and management: The nature of these interactions is determined by the manner in which the TESOL teachers are perceived by the management of the school, that is, whether teachers are regarded as casual labour and thus easily replaceable, whether there is a commitment to providing professional development opportunities by means of funding further study and encouraging participation in conferences and workshops, and whether teachers are empowered to make decisions or at the very least, participate in decision-making. The regard in which the teachers are held directly influences the atmosphere of the school. In schools where teachers are viewed as temporary workers, there is often a lack of collegiality, a preponderance of gossip, convoluted lines of communication and an atmosphere of threat. This supports Bruno (2007: 27) who states that “Groups of people who have been forbidden direct access to power often compensate by using indirect means such as gossip.” Furthermore, the management of the language school are perceived as creating and endorsing the working conditions of the teachers which are generally characterised by short-to-medium term employment contracts based on student numbers, few or no benefits such as medical aid and pension fund and salaries that are not market-related; Teaching observations, conducted by administrators and co-ordinators who often hold qualifications in administration, commerce, finance, education and linguistics but not in TESOL specifically, can also be a source of stress. Observations are often presented as opportunities for teacher development but, more often than not, end up as a critique of one’s performance in the classroom by a person who exhibits a fundamental lack of understanding of how to conduct a TESOL class. It is difficult to determine what the criteria of the observation are and teachers often do not receive constructive feedback on their performance. This supports O’Leary (2006: 191) who maintains that “current models of classroom observation are contrary to teacher development and do little to improve the overall quality of teacher performance.” In addition, O’Leary (2006) feels that observations lead to a culture of negativity and are too easily influenced by the subjective bias of the observer;

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Competition between teachers to be the most ‘popular’ teacher among the students can lead to intense rivalry and a lack of collegiality. This can lead to what Peterson (2002) describes as a toxic culture characterised by a lack of purpose, a discouragement of collaborative projects and hostile relations among teaching staff; and The use of communal classrooms or shared spaces set up as classrooms creates a sense of dislocation and a lack of ownership of one’s teaching space. Not knowing where one is going to be teaching — from one course to the next — can lead to feelings of disempowerment. In addition, TESOL teachers often share computers and office space in an unused office designated as the shared ‘Teachers Room’. The lack of quiet space to prepare, work and think leads to a tendency to work in isolation with a minimal teacher support network and insufficient co-ordinator or supervisor support. There is often little investment in up-to-date course material, resources, games and other equipment with teachers usually purchasing these items with their own money. My hypothesis in this thesis is that all of these factors in combination, to a greater or lesser degree, can lead to stress and burnout. It should be noted, however, that stress serves as a mediating variable in the manifestation of burnout but experiencing stress does not automatically result in burnout.20 Coombe (2008:11) explains that teachers generally fall into three categories when reacting to stress and burnout: some teachers leave the profession, others ‘downshift’ by taking on a less demanding role such as working part-time or by relinquishing additional duties and others redefine their sense of identity as educators which may involve developing interests outside of teaching, placing more emphasis on family life or relocating to a more favourable working environment. Maslach and Jackson (1986) state that burnt-out teachers exhibit three characteristics: emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation of students and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment. In addition to the possibility of burnt-out teachers, private language schools often do not have adequate support structures in place such as teacher support groups, mentoring and professional development programmes and regular workshops and discussions. Although much research has been conducted on teacher stress in educational institutions, particularly in primary and secondary educational settings, little is known, nationally or internationally, about the factors that stress TESOL teachers and how these teachers cope with stress and consequent burnout in the context of working in private language schools. An extensive bibliographical

20

An in-depth, theoretical discussion of the concept of burnout is beyond the scope of this thesis.

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search revealed that there is no research on burnout, support networks and coping strategies of TESOL teachers in South Africa.21 It is this research gap which the thesis seeks to fill. Thus, the purpose of this research was to: Identify whether TESOL teachers working in private language schools in Johannesburg,22 South Africa, suffered from stress. This includes determining what factors caused stress among TESOL teachers working at private language schools; Determine what factors caused burnout among TESOL teachers working in private language schools in Johannesburg, South Africa; Investigate what type of support structures, if any, were present in private language schools; and Explore the coping strategies used by TESOL teachers to overcome stress and burnout. 1.4.1 Research questions The research questions are as follows: a. What factors inside and outside the classroom cause stress for TESOL teachers working at private language schools in Johannesburg? b. Are TESOL teachers working at private language schools in Johannesburg suffering from burnout? What support structures do private language schools in Johannesburg offer TESOL teachers who experience stress and burnout? and c. What coping strategies do TESOL teachers working at private language schools in Johannesburg use to manage stress and burnout? 1.4.2 Research objectives The research objectives are as follows: a. To discover, by means of the administration of the Maslach Burnout InventoryEducators Survey, whether TESOL teachers working at private language schools in Johannesburg suffer from burnout; b. To identify the factors, inside and outside the classroom, that make TESOL teachers experiencing high levels of burnout feel stressed, as measured by semi-structured interviews;

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An extensive database search was conducted by Unisa subject librarian, Dawie Malan and the researcher. The following databases were searched: Academic Search Premier; Australasian Digital Theses Program; Cambridge Journals Online; Communication and Mass Media; CSA Linguistics and Language Behaviour Abstracts; EBSCO Host: Humanities; EBSCO Host:Teacher Reference Center; ERIC; JSTOR; LLBA; MLA; Masterfile Premier; PAIS; Proquest Dissertations and Theses; Proquest Education Journals; Psychcritiqu; Psychextra; Sabinet current and completed research and Unisa ETD. 22 The researcher limited the study to the geographic area of greater Johannesburg for the purpose of convenience only.

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c. To investigate and identify what support structures private language schools in Johannesburg offer TESOL teachers with high levels of burnout, as measured by semi-structured interviews; and d. To identify what coping strategies TESOL teachers with high levels of burnout use to manage stress and burnout, as measured by semi-structured interviews. 1.5 Limitations of the study This research study only focuses on the burnout levels, causes of stress, support structures and coping strategies of TESOL teachers who teach English to foreign students studying at private language schools in South Africa. Consequently the study is limited to: TESOL teachers who are South African citizens; TESOL teachers who speak English as their first language. In the researcher’s experience it is unusual for non-native speakers to be employed as TESOL teachers in private language schools in South Africa.23 In addition, the experience of non-native English teachers may be completely different as these teachers may experience different stressors compared to those who are first language English speakers24; TESOL teachers who have a minimum of two years TESOL teaching experience at a private language school and have thus established themselves in the field; TESOL teachers who work on a part-time or full-time basis at private language schools in Johannesburg, South Africa; and TESOL teachers who participated in part 1: the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey and part 2: the in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Consequently the results of the study are relevant to South African TESOL teachers who are first language speakers of English and those who have at least two years teaching experience at private language schools, on a part-time or full-time basis. The researcher maintains that the results of the study are relevant to any group of TESOL teachers working at private language schools in urban areas in South Africa. 1.6 Delimitations of the study The study will not investigate: Whether there is a relationship between having no, or the most basic qualifications in TESOL, or being qualified in the field, and any consequent relationship between such qualifications and causes of stress, burnout, support structures and coping strategies 23

All of the private language schools that participated in this research study followed a policy of employing first language English speakers as TESOL teachers. 24 These stressors may include poor self-image, feelings of inadequacy, being discriminated against by students and employers, only being allowed to teach low-level classes and having to field constant questions about teaching ability and competence (Moussu and Llurda, 2008).

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among TESOL teachers working in private language schools in Johannesburg, South Africa; Age or gender differences and their relationship to causes of stress, burnout levels, support structures and coping strategies of TESOL teachers who teach English to foreign students studying at private language schools in Johannesburg, South Africa; and The possible sources of stress, burnout levels, available support networks and coping strategies of non-native speaking teachers of English who work at private language schools in Johannesburg, South Africa. 1.7 Definition of terms TEFL refers to the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language. The term traditionally referred to programmes in countries where English was not the primary language or lingua franca, that is, the use of English in a non-English speaking region such as Brazil or China. The term is generally used to emphasise the fact that the students are foreign language speakers and are learning English for work, study or leisure purposes. TESL refers to the Teaching of English as a Second Language. This term often refers to English improvement programmes in English-speaking countries which are aimed at students who speak languages other than English. People may decide to learn English as an additional language when they need it in their day-to-day lives, for example, emigrants to the UK or USA or citizens of ex-colonies where English is an official language and possibly the language of instruction in the schooling system. The students, therefore, study in a community in which most residents speak English. Teachers of English as a second or additional language are often involved in multi-cultural education. For example, there is an enormous TESL industry in the USA because of the large numbers of emigrants whose first language is not English. The terms TESL or ESL tend to be dominant in the American context. However, the term ESL is often criticised as English is not necessarily the students’ second language. For some students, English may be a third, fourth or even fifth language. TESOL refers to the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages. It is regarded as the more inclusive term and refers to both TEFL and TESL teaching. The term emphasises the fact that English is not the students’ mother tongue but does not assume that English is a foreign or additional language for the student. Other common terms are EIL (English as an international language) and EAL (English as an additional language). o There are many other acronyms and sub-categories such as ESP which refers to English for Specific Purposes which aims to match English language teaching with the needs of various professions such as aviation, business, medicine and tourism. EAP refers to English for Academic Purposes which involves teaching

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English at an advanced level for students who are planning to study at foreign universities or English-medium institutions in their own country. A private language school refers to a school which is privately-owned and which offers a range of language courses and is run as a business for profit. A university-affiliated language school is the same as a private language school but is based on a university campus. 1.8 Assumptions This research study makes the following assumptions: Teaching is a stressful profession: o All teachers, including TESOL teachers, experience stress caused by factors inside and outside the classroom; o This stress, if prolonged, can lead to burnout. As a result, stress from teaching coupled with various factors unique to the TESOL field such as unsatisfactory working conditions, unstable employment and low salaries, result in high levels of burnout among TESOL teachers working in private language schools in Johannesburg, South Africa; Private language schools do not have adequate support structures in place for TESOL teachers; TESOL teachers do not use effective coping strategies to manage stress levels and burnout; and thus TESOL teachers who suffer from burnout have few or no support structures in the workplace and those who do not use effective coping mechanisms to manage stress and burnout are likely to be ineffective teachers and may end up leaving the profession. 1.9 Significance of the study This study focuses on TESOL teachers employed by private language schools in Johannesburg, South Africa. As more and more people turn to the teaching of English as a foreign language as a viable career option and not just as a way of spending a gap year, a post-retirement option or a short-term means of working and seeing the world, there is a pressing need to focus on the factors that cause stress and burnout for TESOL teachers and to determine how these stressors impact on their classroom performance and that of their students. This research study contributes to the field of TESOL as it explores the factors that cause TESOL teachers to feel stressed and whether these factors lead TESOL teachers working at private language schools in South Africa to experience burnout. Thus it attempts to identify stressors inside and outside the classroom based on an initial survey followed by interviews focusing on teachers’ perceptions of stressful factors and the ways in which teachers cope with these

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stressors. In addition, it highlights any lack of support structures available for teachers or ways in which the present support structures can be improved. This provides valuable information for private language school directors, coordinators, TESOL teacher trainers and TESOL teachers as it offers insight into the realities of working as a TESOL teacher and teachers’ perceptions of their work and their workplace with a view to the improvement of both. This information will prove useful in TESOL teacher training courses and in the daily running of a private language school. It is imperative to know what impacts negatively on teachers inside and outside the TESOL classroom and how they cope with the consequent stress and burnout so as to ensure that students receive quality tuition, teachers experience job satisfaction, remain motivated and do not ultimately leave the profession. Research in this area can highlight potential problems in private language school administration, teacher training courses, classroom management and inadequacies in current support systems. If improvements are made to these areas, the experience of teaching English would become more fulfilling. This would allow teachers to focus on the classroom and their students and thus prevent excellent teachers from leaving the profession. Mullock (2009) states that there is an increasing need for TESOL teacher educators, teacher employers and policy makers to understand why teachers choose to enter language teaching specifically, what factors keep them in the field and why they may consider leaving it. Over fifteen years ago, Johnston (1997: 682) said that little is known about the lives of teachers who work in the TESOL field and that “it is time to gather empirical data about the working lives of actual teachers and to make these lives the focus of research.” There has not been a great deal of progress since this statement as the vast majority of TESOL studies still focus on the students of the language, the various English language teaching methodologies and techniques and the language itself while arguably, the most important people, those who teach the language have not been the focus of sustained research. 1.10 Structure of the thesis Chapter 1 presented information on the current status of the English language, the TESOL industry, the nature of TESOL teaching and the students the industry serves. This is necessary in order to understand the context of this research study. Furthermore, chapter 1 presented the problem statement, research questions, research objectives, limitations and delimitations of the study. The chapter concluded with a definition of terms and a section on the significance of the study. Chapter 2 presents a review of the literature which is based on existing research of teacher stressors, support networks and coping strategies. After a discussion of the concept of

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burnout, the focus shifts to teacher stress and consequent burnout. TESOL teachers have specific stressors which tend to relate to the nature of private language schools and the unique situation of teaching English to foreign language students, the vast majority of whom are adults. I then investigate the status of the global TESOL industry and move on to TESOL teacher stress and burnout. I also present research that focuses on the influence of support structures and different types of coping strategies. Chapter 3 outlines the research design of the study and describes the methodology of the empirical study. The research study is a mixed methods study consisting of a quan→QUAL research design. Data is based on the experiences and perceptions of TESOL teachers and was collected initially by means of an internationally recognised and standardised survey 25 followed by in-depth qualitative interviews. The results of the survey are quantifiable and the interviews are analysed qualitatively in terms of recurring themes. Chapter 4 presents the results of the research study. Firstly, the results of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey are presented which reveal whether TESOL teachers working at private language schools in Johannesburg are suffering from burnout. The qualitative data derived from the semi-structured interviews is then presented thematically in terms of what causes teachers to feel stressed, what support structures are available and what coping strategies TESOL teachers use to manage burnout. In chapter 5, a summary of the main research findings for the Maslach Burnout InventoryEducators Survey and the semi-structured interviews is presented followed by conclusions drawn from the research study. This is followed by the contribution of the research study to the field of TESOL and suggestions for further research.

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The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES).

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Chapter 2: Literature Review 2.1 Introduction Researchers have studied various affective variables impacting on additional-language students such as anxiety, inhibition, personality, perfectionism, self-esteem and motivation (Brodkey and Shore, 1976; Guiora, Acton, Erard and Strickland, 1980; Gardner and MacIntyre, 1991, 1992; Ganschow, Sparks and Javorsky, 1998; Gregersen and Horwitz, 2002; Woodrow, 2006; Elyildirim and Ashton-Hay, 2006; Liu and Jackson, 2008 and Horwitz, 1986, 1988, 1996, 2010). As most of the research has, however, focused on additional-language students rather than their teachers, little is known about the effect of affective variables on additional-language teachers, specifically TESOL teachers. This introduction provides a brief overview of research which has focused on TESOL teachers in overseas teaching contexts. There is growing interest in researching the teaching experience especially studies of professional development. Bailey, Curtis and Nunan (2001) in Pursuing professional development: The self as source, advise TESOL teachers’ on how to reflect on their personal teaching and learning experiences as a means of professional development through the use of various techniques such as keeping teaching journals, filming and critiquing their lessons and conducting action research in their classrooms. Pennington (1991) reviewed the topic of job satisfaction among TESOL teachers using survey data from TESOL organisation members in the USA while Mullock (2009) explored the concept of job satisfaction among expatriate TESOL teachers working in south-east Asia. Mullock interviewed twenty-three expatriate TESOL teachers with a focus on their motivations for entering the field of TESOL and feelings of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with their current employment situation. Markham et al. (1996) used a questionnaire to identify stressors and coping strategies among seventy-two TESOL teachers in the USA. Markham (1999) also conducted a qualitative, interview-based study of twelve American TESOL teachers in order to obtain detailed descriptions of stressors in the workplace. Hafernik, Messerschmitt and Vandrick (2002) looked at the ethical component of TESOL teaching in the USA including how TESOL teachers coped with inappropriate comments and complaints, cheating and plagiarism and students’ social and political realities. Richards (2008) investigated the growing professionalism of TESOL as a result of theoretical changes to TESOL’s knowledge base and instructional practices and the influence of external pressures on additional-language teacher education. Simon-Maeda (2004: 405), using in-depth interviews, investigated professional identities among nine TESOL teachers in Japan in a study which included a diverse range of participants from Japan, Korea, the USA, the UK and South Africa. Simon-Maeda (2004) maintains that current TESOL education theories do not “fully address the confusions and transitions in TESOL teachers’ career trajectories.” Tsui (2007), in a case study spanning six years, explored the

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formation of a Chinese TESOL teacher’s professional identity as he struggled with the duality of being a student and a teacher of English while Kabilan (2007) focused on teacher self-reflection and the development of a critical and reflective awareness of classroom practices in non-native English language learning and teaching environments. Kabilan (2007) used a range of critical reflective practices to encourage self-reflection with eighteen pre-service and in-service Thai TESOL teachers enrolled in a Bachelor of Education TESOL programme. Kabilan (2007) maintains that self-reflective practices should be integrated into the TESOL curriculum and that TESOL teachers must be given the opportunity to share their critical reflections with each other. Cadman (2008), a British TESOL teacher based in Australia, used an autobiographical, narrative methodology, to explore her perceptions of how the social contexts of English language teaching have changed over the past decade and recounts her experience of re-aligning her teaching priorities from a rigid focus on grammatical correctness to a more flexible process of negotiating meaning. Cadman (2008) found that this change mirrored her ‘reconnection’ with her students and represented a huge step forward in her professional development. Ghanizadeh and Moafian (2010) examined the relationship between eighty-nine TESOL teachers’ emotional intelligence results and their pedagogical success at private language schools in Iran, using The Emotional Quotient Inventory, a self-report measure (Bar-On, 1997) and a questionnaire about the characteristics of successful TESOL teachers (Moafian and Pishghadam, 2009). Ghanizadeh et al. (2010) discovered that teachers’ with high emotional intelligence tended to have more positive interpersonal relationships with students and colleagues and were generally happier and more successful in the classroom. In addition, their classes were more communicative and humanistic than those of teachers with low emotional intelligence. There are, therefore, an increasing number of studies which focus on the experiences of additional-language teachers. However, there are very few studies that specifically focus on stress levels, support networks and coping strategies among TESOL teachers (Coombe, 2008; Grasse, 1982; Horwitz, 1996; Johnston, 1997; Loh, 1995; Markham et al., 1996; Mede, 2009; Mousavi, 2007; Pennington and Ho, 1995; Toh, 2013; Zhang and Zhou, 2007). In addition, none of these studies, nationally or internationally, focus specifically on the three aspects identified for this research study, namely: burnout, support networks and coping strategies. This literature review offers a brief explanation of the phenomenon of burnout, and then looks at what stresses and burns out teachers generally and provides an overview of the research in that area. I then look at the status of TESOL as a profession and the available research on TESOL teacher stress and burnout. Finally, I look at the role of support structures in preventing burnout and what kind of coping strategies TESOL teachers’ use in order to cope with burnout.

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2.2 The concept of burnout Dr. Herbert Freudenberger, an American psychologist, coined the term burnout. He first used it in the early 1970s to describe the condition of emotionally, physically and mentally drained social workers who had spent extended periods of time working with drug addicts (Freudenberger, 1974). The term was later extended to include other helping professions such as law enforcement, nursing and teaching and eventually, to all professions where people work under pressure. Maslach and Leiter (1997: 17) describe burnout as a “dislocation between what people are and what they have to do. It represents an erosion in values, dignity, spirit and will – it is an erosion of the human soul.” The researchers view burnout as a malady that spreads gradually over time, pushing people into a downward spiral from which it is difficult to recover. It should be noted that burnout emerged as a social problem grounded in the realities of people’s experiences in the workplace rather than as a scholarly construct. Consequently, it has been shaped by pragmatic rather than academic concerns and has been the subject of fierce debates about its viability as a measurable construct (Byrne, 1991a; Friberg, 2009 [who traces the development of burnout from hypothesis to fact, starting with Freudenberger’s systematisation of symptoms to Maslach’s statistical legitimisation of burnout phenomena]; Maslach et al., 1981; Schaufeli, Maslach and Marek, 1993). Furthermore, Maslach describes how burnout was initially regarded as pseudoscientific jargon without substance and was “denigrated by journal editors as ‘pop psychology’” (Maslach et al., 2001: 398). Maslach et al. (1981) developed a conceptual model of burnout which defines burnout as a long-term response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors on the job. Burnout is, therefore, a psychological syndrome consisting of three dimensions on which there is general consensus: Emotional exhaustion which includes feeling emotionally over-extended, depleted of emotional resilience and resources, chronic fatigue and a lack of energy. The major sources of emotional exhaustion are work overload and personal conflict at work. The emotional exhaustion component represents the basic stress dimension of burnout. Depersonalisation which refers to a negative and callous response to other people including a loss of idealism with the job. Depersonalisation usually develops in response to emotional exhaustion and tends to manifest as an emotional buffer of detached concern which may develop into the dehumanisation of others. The depersonalisation component represents the interpersonal dimension of burnout. Reduced personal accomplishment which includes a decline in competence and productivity at work, a lowered sense of self-efficacy which may be linked to depression and a consequent inability to cope with the demands of the job. It can be aggravated by a lack of social support and few opportunities for professional development. The

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reduced personal accomplishment component represents the self-evaluative dimension of burnout (Maslach et al., 1981). Maslach et al. (1997: 17) maintain that burnout can be viewed as “an erosion of engagement with what started out as important, meaningful and challenging work that becomes unpleasant, unfulfilling and meaningless.” Thus burnout occurs when exhaustion replaces feeling energized, cynicism replaces hope and ineffectiveness replaces feeling efficacious. Maslach et al. (1997: 9) state that the greater the mismatch between the individual and the job, the greater the likelihood of burnout. The researchers identify six areas where a mismatch may occur: work overload with little opportunity for rest and recovery; breakdown of community in the form of workplace conflicts, isolation, lack of shared praise, happiness and humour; lack of control with little opportunity to make decisions, improve one’s situation or innovate; lack of recognition and insufficient rewards in the form of money and benefits; unfairness, inequalities and bias including a lack of mutual respect; and discrepancies between an organisation’s public persona and the reality of the workplace. Maslach et al. (1997: 18) argue that burnout is not a problem that lies with the individual but occurs as a result of the social environment in which people work. Thus, “The structure and functioning of the workplace shapes how people interact with one another and how they carry out their jobs. When the workplace does not recognise the human side of work, then the risk of burnout grows.” Burnout can impact negatively on one’s health, ability to cope with challenges and one’s personal lifestyle. Burnout can cause physical problems such as headaches, gastrointestinal illness, high blood pressure, muscle tension and chronic fatigue. It may lead to mental distress in the form of anxiety, depression and sleep disturbances. In addition, some people may turn to alcohol and drugs in order to cope. Maslach et al. (1997: 19) maintain that the cost of burnout affects more than the individual. If the individual brings burnout home, their exhaustion and negativity poisons their relationships with their family and friends. At the very least, burnout ultimately leads to a serious deterioration in job performance. As burnt-out individuals become more stressed and receive less support in their personal lives, they become less able to deal with challenges at work. People suffering from burnout tend to withdraw from their jobs, both physically and psychologically. They invest less time and energy in their work, do only what is absolutely necessary and are absent more often. In addition to doing less, they do their work less well. Quality work requires time and effort, commitment and

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creativity, but the burnt-out individual is unable to do this anymore (Maslach et al., 1997). Thus burnout represents a lack of commitment at all or most levels of a person’s ecology. There is thus a significant cost to the organisation when employees exhibit physical, mental and emotional signs of stress such as increased absenteeism due to illness, diminished commitment and motivation and high rates of attrition. Maslach et al. (1981) and Schonfield (2001) agree that certain working conditions are linked to psychological distress and burnout. These include thwarted goals, little opportunity for professional accomplishment, bullying and other forms of aggressive social behaviour. According to Maslach (2003), teachers in general are particularly susceptible to burnout and typical teacher burnout symptoms include consistent late coming, high absenteeism, poor job performance and a lack of interest and commitment. Kokkinos, Panayiotou and Davazoglou (2005) used the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey and a questionnaire based on the Pupils’ Undesirable Behaviours Questionnaire (PUBQ) to assess whether burnout and personality were linked to the perceived severity of twenty-four undesirable student behaviours. Sample 1 consisted of 465 Greek primary school teachers and sample 2 consisted of 141 Greek undergraduate students enrolled for a Bachelor of Primary Education degree. The researchers found that there is a significant relationship between teacher burnout and ratings of antisocial student behaviours. This downward spiral suggests that as teachers become more stressed, they are less tolerant of challenging students which creates a vicious cycle in which teacher negativity serves to exacerbate student behavioural problems, which in turn, leads to more stress in the classroom. 2.3 Teacher stress and burnout According to Kyriacou (1987), teaching is one of the top five most stressful careers and Pennington et al. (1995) state that teaching has the highest attrition rate of any profession. This supports Manuel (2003) who refers to teaching as ‘the profession that eats its young’. Hodge, Jupp and Taylor (1994) report that teaching is a stressful profession with teachers maintaining that their rewards are diminishing resulting in fewer students entering the profession and practicing teachers being lured away by more promising career opportunities. Mullock (2009) states that research shows that as many as 50% of teachers leave the profession within the first three years of teaching in the USA and 40% leave after five years in the UK. In Australia, the figures are similar with 56% of prospective teachers planning to teach for only a short time, if at all. In a study of teacher attrition26 among primary and secondary school teachers in sub-Saharan Africa (International Task Force on Teachers for EFA: 2010), the researchers found that some 26

The attrition rate is affected by deaths, resignations, retirement, dismissals and temporary exits out of the profession. [Source: www.sace.org.za/policy and research, (accessed 18 January 2012)].

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teachers deliberately enter teaching with a view to moving out of the profession as quickly as possible. In many sub-Saharan countries, training as a teacher provides access to higher education for those who may not otherwise have been able to study at tertiary level due to a lack of academic achievement or financial constraints (2010: 19). Thus a number of new recruits to the profession lack the passion to teach and view teaching as a means to an end, before they have even entered the classroom. Teacher attrition is not as high in sub-Saharan Africa as in many other parts of the world, however, due to a lack of alternative employment opportunities and high unemployment rates. This creates a skewed perception of teacher attrition as low resignation rates do not directly translate to high job satisfaction levels but rather to a shortage of better employment opportunities. Sommers (2005: 23) reports that a Sudanese government official described teaching as a “waiting place. It’s not a profession. Teachers just teach when they have nothing else to do. But when an opportunity comes, they leave.” Arends (2007) notes that other important factors in sub-Saharan Africa that influence attrition include the fact that teachers generally resist postings to rural schools due to poor working conditions, large classes and a lack of opportunities for professional development. Teachers also cite problems with the administration of their pay including late payments, incorrect pay and difficulty accessing their pay. Being in a career that one does not care for, working in places that one would not choose to work in, and enduring poor working conditions and erratic salary administration is a recipe for stress and burnout. In South Africa, studies of teacher attrition commissioned by the South African Council of Educators (SACE), among primary and secondary school teachers in both state and independent schools, found that 49% of attrition is due to resignations as compared to other possible causes of attrition such as death, dismissal, medical issues, retirement, severance and transfer. More than half of the educators surveyed (55%) stated that they intended to leave the profession. Resignation was highest in the 30-39 year-old age group, which is of great concern as teachers in this age group constitute the core of qualified and experienced educators. The researchers discovered that many of these teachers were lured from teaching by lucrative opportunities in the private sector especially in the case of English, mathematics, science and accountancy teachers. Organisational conditions were also a large contributing factor to teacher attrition with teachers citing a lack of career advancement, lack of job security and poor relationships with school administration or colleagues. The researchers found that the following were important in retaining teachers: the creation of positive relationships with the community, colleagues and the school administration, market-related salaries, opportunities for further study and professional development and good school management (SACE: 2010).

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A further study, commissioned by the South African Council of Educators, on teacher migration from South Africa to other countries (SACE, 2011: 6-7) suggests that South African schools and the national education departments should be responsible for creating attractive, healthy and supportive local teaching environments. The researchers predict that if these teaching environments are not created, increasing numbers of teachers will be headhunted by international recruitment agencies which offer more rewarding work and attractive salary packages. This is especially true of South African TESOL teachers and English teachers with TESOL qualifications, where international opportunities are far more attractive and lucrative than those offered locally. The researchers maintain that the migration of South African teachers is caused by ambiguous and ever-changing educational policies and teachers’ underpreparedness to cope with these changes, unattractive salaries and working conditions as well as the impact of HIV and AIDS on the teaching profession. Unfortunately South Africa does not keep track of the number of teachers lost to the country through international recruitment but available data suggests that the majority of local primary and secondary school teachers who find positions outside South Africa are recruited by Australia, Canada, the USA and the UK (SACE: 2011). According to Mullock (2009), teaching was an attractive profession in the past as it offered a degree of professional freedom and a certain status in society. However, studies of teacher satisfaction reveal that teachers worldwide now complain about administrative overloading, low salaries, poor promotional prospects and students’ behavioural problems. In addition, the declining status of teachers, the pace of educational change and the increase in workload have been exacerbated by the negative portrayal of teachers and teaching in the media (Mullock, 2009). Palmer (1998: 17) describes the diminishing intellectual and professional returns of being a teacher combined with increasing routine and frustration as “losing the heart to teach.” Friesen, Prokop and Sarros (1988: 9) maintain that the reason teaching is stressful is because it involves “daily interactions with students and co-workers...with the incessant and fragmented demands of teaching often resulting in overwhelming pressures and challenges which lead to stress.” When this work stress becomes unrelenting, it can lead to negative physiological, psychological and behavioural consequences such as burnout. Stress, therefore, occurs when there is an imbalance between environmental demands and an individual’s capacity to respond to these demands. This capacity to respond depends on the individuals’ aptitudes, skills and beliefs about the situation (Milstein, Golaszewski and Duquette, 1984). Milstein et al. (1984: 296) also report that if teachers’ professional obligations are not met, their self-image and their ability to cope in the classroom may be at risk.

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Milstein et al. (1984) maintain that there are five main sources of teacher stress. These are: relationships at work including interactions with supervisors, peers, subordinates and students; organisational structures including the extent to which individuals participate in decision-making, have a sense of belonging and experience clear communication; intrinsic job factors including the pace of the work, the physical and mental effort required and the extent to which activities are repetitive; roles in the organisation including role ambiguity and role conflict; and career development which includes a lack of career progression and status, low job security, poor salaries and the low probability of reward. Combined, all of these sources of stress can lead to an intolerable situation in which teachers decide that the stress experienced is not worth the low rewards. In addition, such prolonged stress can lead to burnout. Weisberg (1994) administered a 21-item burnout scale (developed by Pines and Kafry) and conducted in-depth interviews with twenty-eight teachers in a secondary school in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Weisberg (1994) maintains that burnout among teachers is caused by work overload, inadequate salaries, disciplinary problems in the classroom, lack of student interest, a requirement to give too many tests, difficulty in career advancement, lack of a support team and resources, conflict in job perceptions, tedium, and criticism of teachers and their work. Farber (1984) states that burnout occurs when teachers experience a lack of enthusiasm about teaching, a lack of belonging to a community and increased feelings of isolation. Farber (1984) administered a Teacher Attitude Survey (a modified version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory) to 365 suburban primary and secondary school teachers in the USA. He discovered that student discipline problems were not a primary source of stress for the teachers in this survey. This is in contrast to Goddard (2000) who reports that ‘disciplinarian’ was the third most commonly cited descriptor provided by Canadian teachers for their work, ranking just behind ‘leader’ and ‘knowledge dispenser.’ Farber (1984: 327) states that, “the teachers resented most strongly excessive paperwork, unsuccessful administrative meetings and the lack of advancement opportunities in teaching.” In addition, 32% of the teachers in the study said that they frequently wished they had not chosen teaching as a career and did not feel adequately prepared for the stresses of teaching. However, Farber (1984) states that the results should be interpreted with caution as results obtained from a sample of suburban teachers cannot be generalised to all teachers. Farber’s research supports Manuel (2003) who, when interviewing novice teachers in Australia, discovered that the teachers had already experienced disorganised administration, unprofessional behaviour from colleagues, violence from students and a lack of both support and professional development from their respective schools.

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According to Chang (2009), the sources of teacher burnout can be divided into those arising from individual, organisational and transactional factors. Individual factors include the influence of age, gender, years of teaching experience and personality characteristics. Organisational factors include excessive job demands, poor working conditions, inadequate salaries and role ambiguity. Transactional factors are the result of the intersection of individual and organisational factors and include teachers’ judgements of student misbehaviour, perceptions of organisational leadership style, perceived principal, peer and administrative support, teacher efficacy and socially reflected self-concept, norms of student-teacher interactions and internal rewards and professional satisfaction. A review of the literature on burnout reveals that in terms of individual factors: Younger teachers between twenty and thirty years old are more prone to burnout, particularly the emotional exhaustion component, than teachers between the ages of thirty and forty. This supports Lackritz (2004: 725) who states that younger teachers may “experience additional pressures” due to the early stages of career-building. Watts and Robertson (2010) state that this may occur because older, more experienced staff members have developed more efficient coping and protective strategies. However, findings regarding age as a predictor of teacher burnout are not consistent across the literature with some studies finding no evidence of age as a predictor of burnout. A number of researchers including Brissie, Hoover-Dempsey and Bassler (1988); Monareng (2006); Weisberg (1994); and Zabel and Zabel (2001) found no evidence of age predicting burnout. The relationship between gender and burnout reveals mixed results. Some studies find no significant differences in teacher burnout in terms of gender (Farber, 1984; Kahn, Schneider, Jenkins-Henkelman, Moyle, 2006; Monareng, 2006). In addition, Mwamwenda, Monyooe and Glencross (1997) found no gender differences in burnout levels in a study of stress among secondary school teachers in Transkei, South Africa. However, there are other studies that state that male teachers report higher levels of burnout than female teachers. In a burnout study conducted by Burke and Greenglass (1993: 226) men scored significantly higher than women on the depersonalisation subscale. In addition, Burke et al. (1993) maintain that doubts about competence, problems with students and a lack of fulfilment at work are all predictors of burnout among male teachers. Sari (2004) used the Job Satisfaction Scale (JSS: Hackman and Oldham, 1974) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach and Jackson, 1981) to measure job satisfaction and burnout among secondary school teachers in Turkey. Sari (2004) found that the female teachers experienced higher levels of emotional exhaustion and the male teachers’ higher levels of depersonalisation and inefficacy which supports Burke and Greenglass’s 1993 findings. Purvanova and Muros (2010) conducted a meta-analysis

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of 183 American and European Union burnout studies. Purvanova et al. (2010) state that women in the USA and various countries in the European Union reported higher emotional exhaustion than men because they juggle multiple roles at work and at home which deplete their emotional reserves. Purvanova et al. (2010) also found that the female emotional exhaustion link was stronger where labour policies are conservative such as in the USA and weaker in countries where labour policies are more progressive such as Australia, Canada and the countries of the European Union. This finding supports Maslach et al. (2001: 412) suspicion that, “jobs might actually be more stressful in North America than in Western Europe.” In the African context, there have not yet been any research studies which investigate the relationship between gender and burnout among African teachers in general and South African teachers specifically. In terms of marital status, Gold (1985) states that single teachers tend to be more prone to burnout than married teachers. This supports Bauer, Stamm, Virnich, Wissing, Muller, Wirsching and Schaarschmidt (2006) who, in a study of burnout among 408 secondary school teachers in Germany, found that teachers who were in a relationship or married showed a significantly lower rate of burnout than those who were single or divorced. However, Burke et al. (1993) argue that for many women the predictors of burnout tend to originate in the family and work setting. Role conflict is a significant predictor of burnout in women and thus women with occupational and familial roles are more likely to suffer from burnout than those who are unmarried and do not have children. Personality factors that have been found to predict burnout include: o Low hardiness, a type-A personality characterised by high ambition, aggression, competitiveness, impatience and a preoccupation with time and deadlines, low self-esteem and high expectations of self (Maslach, Schaufeli and Leiter, 2001); o Feeling types rather than thinking types. Feeling types tend to be subjective, make decisions based on their principles and values, dislike conflict and are gentle and easily hurt. Whereas thinking types tend to be objective, make decisions based on facts, and are rational and impersonal. In addition, people who have external locus of control believing that fate, chance and other people control their destiny, and people who use passive and defensive coping strategies such as denial, substance-abuse and behavioural disengagement are more susceptible to burnout (Maslach et al., 2001); o Personality traits such as cautiousness, conscientiousness, a tendency to seek stimulation in the company of others, compassion, cooperativeness, and neuroticism which includes the traits of anxiety, hostility, depression, selfconsciousness and vulnerability (Maslach et al., 2001; Zellars, Hochwarter, Perrewé, Hoffman and Ford, 2004).

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Chang (2009) warns that the results of studies on individual factors should be treated with caution as personalities are not fixed variables and people may respond differently to stressors. Organisational factors that can cause burnout include the following: Lack of social support from colleagues and administrators (Burke et al., 1993; Maslach and Leiter, 2005); Organisational rigidity (Brissie et al., 1988); Excessive work demands and inadequate salary and resources (Milstein et al., 1984; Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004); Insufficient teacher preparation or training (Gold and Bachelor, 1988; Friedman, 2000); Lack of teacher participation in school decision making (Brissie et al., 1988; Pines, 2002); Role ambiguity (Chang, 2009); and Physical variables such as overcrowded classrooms, low-quality workplaces not conducive to teaching and unpleasant working conditions (Carson, 2006). Chang (2009) argues that teachers form habitual patterns in their judgement of student behaviour and this coupled with other challenging teaching tasks may contribute to teachers’ repeated experience of unpleasant emotions associated with teaching which may lead to burnout. Evers, Tomic and Brouwers (2004) studied burnout among forty-one teachers working with students in their teens and twenties at a regional training centre in the Netherlands. The researchers used the Maslach Burnout Inventory as the main survey instrument and the results suggest that teachers’ ability to cope with disruptive classroom behaviour is significantly related to each dimension of burnout. Pines (2002) posits that disruptive student behaviour stresses teachers because it shows that students lack interest in learning. Thus teachers may feel they are insignificant or perceive themselves as failures. A synthesis of burnout studies over the last two decades reveals that disruptive student behaviour is the main factor that contributes to teacher burnout (Pines, 2002 and Weisberg, 1994). Teaching offers many opportunities to experience positive relationships with students and colleagues. However, due to the complexity of teacher-student and collegial relationships, teaching also leads to a multitude of opportunities to feel worried, frustrated, guilty, angry, powerless, vulnerable and disappointed. Thus teaching requires an extensive degree of emotional work and understanding which can lead to feelings of emotional exhaustion (Sutton, 2007). Furthermore this supports the view that ‘feeling’ types who are gentle and easily hurt tend to hide their emotions which can create feelings of stress and make the individual more susceptible to burnout (Maslach et al., 2001). According to Abraham (1999), emotional dissonance, that is, the inconsistencies between the emotions people really feel and those they display, is a predictor of emotional exhaustion. Intrator and Kunzman (2006) state that new

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teachers experience a dramatic range of intense emotions caused by fear of not being liked or respected, an awareness of being judged by others, the anxiety of not being familiar with the subject matter and the discomfort that comes from having to make quick decisions in the classroom. The prevalence of stress-related problems in the teaching profession has been investigated by a number of researchers in inner circle teaching contexts. In 1976, Dunham surveyed 658 primary and secondary school teachers in the UK and discovered that these teachers reported high stress levels with more severe stress being experienced by teachers in general than ever before as compared to previous studies conducted by Dunham. Keavney and Sinclair (1978) studied teacher anxieties and concerns. They discovered that teachers, particularly inexperienced teachers, doubted their ability to maintain discipline in the classroom, wanted to be popular among students, feared making mistakes in the classroom and found relationships with colleagues, parents and the school system to be a major source of anxiety and stress. This finding supports Milstein et al. (1984) who report similar findings that stressors associated with classroom life are more problematic than organisationally- based stressors. Kyriacou and Sutcliffe (1978) surveyed teachers and department heads working in schools in the UK and found that one-fifth of the respondents experienced very high or extremely high stress levels. In the USA, Dworkin (1987) and Dworkin, Haney, Dworkin and Telschow (1990) studied stress levels among American public school teachers. The researchers discovered high stress levels among teachers in general and a significant relationship between work stress and burnout. Griffith, Steptoe and Cropley (1999) studied job strain and health among 780 primary and secondary school teachers based in London in the UK. Using a questionnaire survey and the Teacher Stress Inventory (Borg and Riding, 1991), Griffith et al. (1999) discovered that work pressure and student misbehaviour were rated as the most important sources of teacher stress with the highest ratings coming from younger female teachers, those in lower occupational grades and those with large class sizes. This discovery supports Chang (2009) who highlights the link between challenging classroom situations and teachers’ emotional states. In an expanding circle context, Zhang et al. (2007) studied 133 Chinese secondary school English teachers and their experience of stress, burnout and social support in the Chinese education system. The researchers used the Maslach Burnout Inventory to measure burnout combined with a questionnaire covering the topics of teacher stress and social support. The researchers found that English teachers were generally stressed and at risk of burnout with the most common stressors being work overload followed by role conflict and role ambiguity. Zhang et al. (2007) state that it is common for secondary school teachers in China to work six or seven days a week, coach students in the early mornings and evenings and teach over the summer and winter breaks. In addition, the researchers noted that stress among teachers in mainland China

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was on the increase due to increasingly competitive university entrance examinations and the tendency to assess teachers’ performance on the basis of their students’ examination scores. Haberman (2005) maintains that a review of the studies on teacher stress indicates beyond doubt that classroom management and lack of student discipline are the most pervasive causes of teacher burnout. This supports Chang (2009); Pines (2002) and Weisberg (1994) who report similar findings. Another source of stress is teachers’ perceptions of administrative support including the atmosphere of the school and how the management of the school views the role of teachers in the school. Furthermore, Haberman (2005) highlights the importance of the quality of the school environment such as the need for light, airy classrooms, the importance of the teacher being able to control the indoor air quality and the need for a quiet environment conducive to studying. Benya (2001) states that increasing natural light in classrooms has positive physiological and psychological effects and Lowe (1990) reports that teachers who could control the air temperature in their classrooms stated that their effectiveness in the classroom increased. Buckley, Schneider and Yi (2004) found a clear link between the quality of school facilities and teacher burnout and turnover. In the South African teaching context, Peltzer, Shisana, Zuma, Van Wyk and Zungu-Dirwayi (2009) investigated the relationship between self-reported job stress and job satisfaction, and the prevalence of stress-related illnesses and risk factors among 21 307 South African teachers working at state schools. Peltzer et al. (2009) used a questionnaire which included demographic variables such as age, gender, socio-economic status and rank in the teaching profession and behavioural items such as sexual behaviour, alcohol use, absenteeism and mobility. They discovered that confusion about teaching methodology and the implementation of new curricula, pass requirements and reporting systems was a major source of stress for teachers. In addition, teachers felt that performing tasks not in their job descriptions, lack of peer support, job insecurity and a lack of career advancement were major sources of stress. In terms of health, the four most common stress-related conditions among the teachers were: hypertension (15%), stomach ulcers (9%), diabetes (4.5%), asthma (3%) and major mental stress (3%). Furthermore, two studies of secondary school teachers in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa reveal that teachers experience considerable stress due to time pressures, poor working conditions, curriculum changes, an overload of administrative duties and student misbehaviour (Ngidi and Sibaya, 2002 and Olivier and Venter, 2003). Olivier et al. (2003) used the Fimian Teacher Stress Inventory (TSI, 1984) to determine the stress levels of a sample of 132 secondary school teachers in the George area of the Western Cape province in South Africa. Olivier et al. (2003) found that more than 20% of the teachers indicated high

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levels of psychological stress with 74% of those indicating that student discipline problems and student lack of motivation were the main factors causing stress. Furthermore, Monareng (2006) used the Professional Life Stress Scale (PLSS: Fontana, 1989) to determine the stress levels among 102 secondary school teachers working in nine state schools in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Monareng (2006) found that of the teachers surveyed 87% felt stressed with 31% reporting high levels of stress. South Africa has experienced significant curriculum changes and the demands made on teachers due to radical curriculum changes such as Outcomes Based Education (OBE) have had a negative effect on teachers’ attitudes and morale. In a qualitative study of twenty-four post graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) student teachers at the Vaal University of Technology, Kiggundu (2007) found that all respondents said that they found it difficult to implement OBE effectively because of a lack of learner support material, large class sizes, lack of discipline and time limitations. This supports Marais and Meier’s (2004) study of 165 third-year Bachelor of Education students studying at the University of South Africa and their experiences of teaching practice. Using a self-report instrument to rate positive and negative experiences, almost half of the respondents stated that they experienced difficulties with OBE because of confusing terminology and ambiguous guidelines, excessive workload, and disagreement about which teaching approaches were best suited to OBE. Stress and burnout are not only prevalent in the primary and secondary education sector but also feature in research conducted in the tertiary education sector. Seldin (1987) conducted a literature review of articles dealing with stress among academics. He discovered that American college and university professors suffered from high stress levels due to inadequate participation in the governance of the institution, work overload, low pay, poor working conditions, a lack of recognition and unrealised career expectations and goals. Lackritz (2004) surveyed 265 university lecturers employed at a university on the west coast of the USA. He discovered that age was a significant factor associated with burnout, with younger lecturers exhibiting higher levels of emotional exhaustion and consequent burnout. This supports Lackritz’s view that younger teachers and lecturers experience more pressure as they are in the early stages of building a career. In South Africa, Barkhuizen, Rothmann and Tytherleigh (2008) studied burnout among 279 academic staff members at six South African universities using the Maslach Burnout InventoryGeneral Survey, among other stress and burnout measures. The researchers found that lecturers who suffered from burnout developed negative attitudes towards their students and colleagues and tended to depersonalise their interactions with them. In addition, the lecturers lost interest in their research, developed callous attitudes towards their work and failed to prepare adequately for their lectures. Furthermore, the researchers discovered that burnout was exacerbated by high job demands, low resources and a lack of growth opportunities and

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social support. Unfortunately no research studies have been conducted on TESOL lecturers and teachers specifically but this is a gap which this research intends to address. MacDonald (1999) maintains that those who leave teaching generally cite the following reasons: poor potential for advancement, low salaries, an administrative overload including lesson preparation which leaves little time for personal interests and family life and difficulties in managing students. Wilhelm, Dewhurst-Savellis and Parker (2000) conducted a longitudinal study of 156 Australian teachers. The study began when the teachers were completing a postgraduate teaching diploma. The teachers provided full data on work, social networks and patterns of illness, and completed self-report measures every five years over a period of fifteen years, from 1978 to 1993. The teachers involved mention poor working conditions, student misbehaviour, excessive time spent on teaching-related activities, antagonistic relationships with colleagues, parents and students and the negative attitudes of students towards learning as sources of teacher stress. This supports Evers et al. (2004); Milstein et al. (1984); Ngidi et al. (2002) and Weisberg (1994) who report similar findings. The results indicate that those who left teaching did so within the first five years whereas those who remained in the profession were younger, had a more positive attitude towards teaching from the outset, saw teaching as more enjoyable and had had greater exposure to positive role models. Teachers who stayed reported that they had a strong social network in their schools, supervisors who listened to their concerns, and the opportunity to upgrade their qualifications and skills. The teachers who left the profession maintained that they had little support from administrators and supervisors especially when they experienced student misbehaviour and they struggled to cope with constant curriculum changes. Ngidi et al. (2002); Olivier et al. (2003) and Peltzer et al. (2009) report similar findings. In a longitudinal study of fifty new teachers in the USA consisting of first-career and mid-career entrants, Johnson (2004) reported that at least half of the teachers worried that they could not remain in the profession because of their low salaries. Beginning teachers in particular stated that they still had to borrow money from their parents or that their salaries only paid for their rent and groceries. Of the original fifty teachers in the study, twelve left the teaching profession after only one year. Van Tonder and Williams (2009) conducted a study on the origins of burnout among fifty-nine secondary school teachers in three state schools in Gauteng, South Africa. The study consisted of administering the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey followed by conducting semi-structured interviews. Van Tonder et al. (2009: 11-12) maintain that “poor remuneration levels are a known stressor” and constitute financial unfair treatment with the participants feeling “underpaid and unsupported.”

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Teacher stress and burnout is thus ubiquitous in a wide variety of teaching contexts ranging from primary and secondary to tertiary educational institutions. The research cited shows that stressed and burnt-out teachers are a global phenomenon, found in a range of geographical contexts from inner circle countries such as the USA and the UK to outer circle and expanding circle countries such as India and China respectively. The sources of stress and burnout are as varied as the educational and geographical contexts. However, recurrent themes that emerge from the literature include poor working conditions and low salaries, a lack of professional development, recognition and career advancement, excessive job demands, a lack of resources and support structures, organisational rigidity and ambiguous educational policies and curricula. In addition, teachers are stressed by student discipline problems and emotionallydraining interactions with parents, administrators, colleagues and the students themselves. According to Gillespie, Walsh, Winefields, Dua and Stough (2001), the adverse effects of stress and burnout on the wellbeing of educators in the primary, secondary and tertiary sector worldwide is likely to have detrimental effects on students’ experience and attainment and the success of educational institutions as a whole. 2.4 The status of the TESOL industry The global TESOL industry has experienced consistent growth in many areas from universityaffiliated and private language schools to university departments offering formal TESOL degrees, well-known publishers with separate TESOL divisions, online TESOL certificates and job postings virtually daily on the Internet. It is estimated that there are over 2 million people involved, directly and indirectly, in the TESOL field all over the world. This figure includes not only TESOL teachers but also non-native speakers of English who teach English in their home countries, university teachers and academics, plus affiliated workers such as publishers and recruiters. According to Robertson (2006), this number could double over the next ten years as the demand for English as an International Language takes hold. In addition, as China and other developing and expanding circle countries experience continued economic growth, the need for English in the business world will surely increase. Robertson (2006: 7) states that, with respect to the TESOL industry, “we are witnessing the growing pains of a truly international profession.” According to Davidson (2006: 24), TESOL “is one of the fastest growing industries in the world yet it operates in a legal vacuum.” He argues that the TESOL profession has slipped under the radar of regulation which could have potentially disastrous consequences for the advancement of TESOL as a legitimate field of social science. This supports Robertson’s (2005: 25) view that “this profession is one of the last bastions of unregulated lawless industries in existence…the problem is tantamount to being beyond repair unless change is forced.” Areas where Davidson (2006) predicts legal problems include: false and misleading advertising, teacher liability, contract law, TESOL certificate ‘mills’, publishing standards and intellectual property theft. He

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maintains that the industry needs to self-regulate and that TESOL course providers should include a module on TESOL law in their courses. Furthermore, Sun (2010) states that until 2005, there had been no comprehensive survey sponsored by any recognised TESOL organisation investigating employment and working conditions of TESOL teachers at national and international levels. Furthermore there is a lack of consistency with regard to qualifications needed to work as a TESOL teacher with some private language schools requiring teachers to have degrees in TESOL or Linguistics while other private language schools require a TESOL, CELTA or DELTA27 short course as a minimum entry requirement. Unfortunately there are still many private language schools worldwide which accept ‘teachers’ with no qualification beyond the fact that they are mother tongue speakers of English. Philipson (1992: 14) maintains that the untrained or unqualified native speaking teacher is actually a “menace because of ignorance of the structure of the mother tongue.” Davidson (2006: 25-26) states that regulation would involve the establishment of a code of ethics accepted by those in the profession, standardized courses of legal study for the TESOL industry and the establishment of a board which would set the legal standards of the industry. He maintains that TESOL has yet to be universally accepted as a serious social science due to the prevalence of the “back packing” image of the industry. Furthermore Davidson (2006: 26) believes that this lack of regulation leads to poor treatment of TESOL teachers in various countries. He states that “any globalised industry that operates without any form of regulation as in the TESOL profession prevents any serious attempt at establishing a recognised profession and the consequent benefits of that profession such as raising salaries, better legal treatment and improved working conditions for TESOL teachers.” Crookes (1997) states that employment conditions of far too many TESOL teachers can be described as a state of alienation in that there is a psychological separation between teachers as human beings and teachers in their working environment. This sense of alienation can lead to stress and burnout. According to Crookes (1997), many professionally trained TESOL teachers work in conditions in which it is difficult to maintain professional standards. They are, therefore, unable to derive job satisfaction and utilize the opportunities for personal growth that one might expect of professional work. Crookes (1997) maintains that this situation effectively deskills TESOL teachers. This is exacerbated by a lack of control over curriculum design, an over-emphasis on testing and conformity to the course book, an increased 27

The Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults and the Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults are based on specifications produced by Cambridge ESOL. A full-time CELTA course is generally four to five weeks long while a full-time DELTA course may range from seven to twelve weeks. The DELTA tends to be more stringent than the CELTA and is seen as the ideal follow on course once the candidate has obtained a range of teaching experience.

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administrative load, isolation and a lack of funding for private language schools in general and TESOL teacher development in particular. Auerbach (1991: 9) maintains that feelings of “marginalization” are a fact of life for TESOL teachers. TESOL teachers working at language schools affiliated to universities are regularly employed on a temporary basis and often “have to work two or three jobs in order to survive; jobs with benefits, living wages, and any measure of security are few and far between.” Crookes (1997), writing about the TESOL situation in Hawaii, agrees stating that many TESOL teachers in Hawaii are forced to take second jobs which limits time for professional development activities. Crookes (1997) adds that interaction between teachers is often restricted by physical classroom arrangements and tight scheduling which further increases a sense of being marginalised. In addition, lesson preparation is often excluded as part of a TESOL teacher’s paid responsibilities with predictable effects on programme quality. Due to limited resources, teachers are forced to compete with one another for available resources, or to take measures that inhibit the sharing of both resources and knowledge. Teachers consequently suffer because of their subordinate status and their isolation within the structure of the school. According to Crookes (1997), the result is that the teacher-student relationship, which should be at the heart of teaching, is threatened and weakened. This supports Braine (1999: 5) who describes TESOL teachers and their students in the context of a university setting as “strangers on the periphery.” A large amount of the stress experienced by TESOL teachers and the conditions under which they work may be linked to the general perception of TESOL as not being a ‘real’ profession bound by a set of recognizable and generally accepted standards. Freeman (1992: 2) describes professions as possessing three critical elements. He states that “professions are administered by their members, have clear standards and processes for entry and licensure, and operate from a recognized and defined knowledge base.” Nicholls (2001), however, believes that the expertise teachers display in their teaching, and the extent to which they exert competence and expertise in a variety of contexts to promote the core business of the organisation, can be termed ‘teaching professionalism’. Corrigan and Haberman (1990) agree stating that the four critical components of teaching are a knowledge base, quality control, intelligent use of resources and acceptable conditions of practice. Consequently TESOL teachers, who fulfill these requirements, can be regarded as professionals. This is open to debate, however, as standards of practice vary, nationally and internationally, across the TESOL industry. According to Doyle (1990: 7-8), teachers possess the key characteristics of professionals as they are “equipped through specified and prolonged preparation to use validated practices and to apply them intelligently.”

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A survey of the literature on the professional status of TESOL teachers reveals that they lack the social standing granted to other professions (Breshears, 2004). This is due to the fragmented nature of the TESOL industry worldwide, the aggressive marketing of TESOL as a viable career choice for school leavers which has led to an influx of unqualified or partly qualified teachers and the confusion as to where TESOL actually belongs as a discipline. At some universities, both internationally and in South Africa, the TESOL department or the university-affiliated language school falls under the administration of the English department whereas at other universities, it is administered by the Linguistics or Applied Linguistics department. In other cases, it forms a separate ‘remedial’ or ‘academic access’ unit under the broad control of Humanities. (See Appendix 1 for South African universities that offer undergraduate and postgraduate TESOL qualifications and where the TESOL department is housed). Breshears (2004) and Pennington (1993) state that there is an ongoing struggle for language teaching to be recognized as a discipline rather than as a ‘trade’ and that there is a strong resistance within university contexts where TESOL programmes tend to have marginal legitimacy within the faculty of Humanities. Auerbach (1991: 7) maintains that “we are workers in a system that does not value our work” as TESOL teaching is generally perceived as remedial work and, in the university context, the study of English language is seen as a means to an end such as entry to an English university or obtaining employment in an English-speaking country. Ramanathan, Davies and Schleppegrell (2001) investigated two MA (TESOL) programmes in the USA, one at a west coast university and the other at a southeastern university. Ramanathan et al. (2001) used a wide range of data sources including written documents, observations, interviews and personal knowledge of the programmes. Ramanathan et al. (2001) discovered that both MA (TESOL) programmes were under the control of larger, more established departments, one in Linguistics and the other in the English department. Both programmes had to negotiate their status and overall purpose in relation to the prevailing issues and goals of those departments and both TESOL programmes were under explicit pressure to conform to the ideologies of the departments that housed them. The programmes appeared to be chameleon-like, having to adjust, accommodate and evolve according to the prevailing culture. Consequently they did not have a self-defined identity. At the one university, for example, there were tensions within the English department as some faculty members felt that the TESOL programme belonged elsewhere because of its pedagogical orientation and social science bias. One interviewee stated that, “The TESOL programme has little standing in the English department and has to fight for its existence. They are interested in literature, not the nuts and bolts of language teaching. We are at the bottom of the heap and have been quite

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literally relegated to a corner”28 (Ramanathan et al., 2001:284). The researchers maintain that this raises the issue of whether TESOL is a unitary professional field for which general standards can be developed or a type of specialization within a broader field such as English or Applied Linguistics. Due to the uniqueness of the mission and function of TESOL programmes, their governance and location is often problematic, according to Pennington (1992). The difficulty in locating TESOL conceptually often means that its physical and structural location is highly variable across institutions and even in one institution at different times. The fact that TESOL does not fit easily within the confines of academic departments and institutions has, therefore, led to its marginalization within academic practice and scholarship (Pennington, 1992). Pennington (1992) believes that one of the major problems associated with the field of TESOL is the fact that although TESOL is based on a specialised body of information, it is widely perceived as knowledge that all native English speakers have in common. Unfortunately English language teaching is generally viewed as entirely transparent and ordinary, as a type of work that nearly any native speaker can perform (Pennington, 1992; Eskey, 1997). Pennington (1992) states that one can assume that TESOL knowledge including the field and its practitioners, will achieve a higher market value within academia to the extent that is it perceived as inaccessible, glamorous and stylish. Pennington (1992) believes that we do ourselves a great injustice in TESOL if we make it seem to others that the work we perform is natural, usual and effortless. Sun (2010) views this as a pretext to deny benefits and competitive salaries to TESOL teachers. Pennington (1992) thus urges TESOL professionals to codify what it is that they do and what it is that they know, to develop standards and job descriptions and to publicise what it means to be a TESOL teacher (See Appendix 2 for Pennington’s list of attitudes, knowledge and skills necessary for English teachers). Luke (2008) refers to TESOL as a ‘service field’ and not a discipline; a socio-practical field of knowledge built around the practice of English language teaching. Despite this, he feels that TESOL is not at risk in the university context as it has the potential to serve and enhance many of the strategic priorities of universities. TESOL has strong links to social policy and education, and a seemingly never-ending market of fee-paying international students who all desire to learn English. However, he does maintain that TESOL is marginalised and in a similar position to fields such as nursing, education and social work. This supports Pennington (1992) and Ramanathan et al. (2001) who believe that this is partly as a result of a lack of a power base from which TESOL professionals operate. In addition, this is a typical of historically feminized fields of study which tend to have low-status in the hierarchy of university governance, having 28

The TESOL instructors were housed in trailers outside the English department which added a physical dimension to their sense of distance from the department.

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moved from specialist training into the liberal arts curriculum only over the past 100 years (Luke, 2008). The result is a marginalisation of TESOL in the overall liberal arts curriculum, a service level of funding support, and in the USA, a relocation of TESOL away from high-status, research universities to smaller, provincial universities and training institutions. This supports Auerbach (1991) and Braine (1999: 17) who describes his experience as a TESOL instructor as being “at the bottom of the academic ranks, and tolerated at the faculty club and academic gatherings more to swell the numbers than for intellectual contributions.” Nunan (1999) states that four criteria are necessary for TESOL to be considered a profession: the existence of advanced education and training, the establishment of standards of practice and certification, an agreed theoretical and empirical base and the work of individuals in the field who act as advocates for the profession. Nunan (1999) believes that TESOL does not fulfill the criteria necessary for it to be considered a profession which also supports Luke (2008) who maintains that teaching TESOL is a skill and not a discipline. Nunan (1999) argues that while there are formal undergraduate and postgraduate fields of study for potential and practicing TESOL teachers, there are also thousands of people around the world who work as TESOL teachers with no formal teaching qualifications at all. In terms of standards of practice and certification, most countries have a form of teaching certification but this is rarely applied to the TESOL industry.29 There is little professional or governmental control over language schools and in many countries, it is relatively simple to open a language school, hire and underpay unqualified teachers and use illegally photocopied materials (Nunan, 1999). This supports Davidson (2006) who expresses concern about unethical practices in the industry. As far as a disciplinary base is concerned, Nunan (1999) believes that education in general and TESOL in particular, needs to define, refine and articulate a firm disciplinary base as both education and TESOL tend to be hybrid disciplines drawing from other more established fields such as linguistics, psychology and sociology. Thus he maintains, “we don’t have a shared set of rules of the game. In fact, we don’t even come close”(Nunan, 1999). Nunan (1999) states that the formation of professional organisations is vital as their key function is to act as defenders and promoters of the profession. Some researchers state that TESOL teaching cannot be compared to professions such as medicine or law as TESOL teachers are not professionals in the sense that doctors and lawyers are. Maley (1992: 99) in an open letter to ‘the profession’ describes TESOL teachers thus: “We are not an army of career soldiers, all equally well-trained, battle-hardened, well-equipped and committed. We are more like one of those marauding armies in 17 th century Europe with a core 29

In South Africa, for example, a person may not work as a teacher within the primary and secondary school system without the appropriate tertiary qualifications and registration with the South African Council of Educators yet a person can find employment as a TESOL teacher armed with nothing more than a matric certificate and a four-week TESOL course.

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of highly trained and motivated cavalry, surrounded by foot soldiers of dubious reliability and a host of camp followers bringing up the rear.” Maley (1992) believes that professionalization may result in negative consequences as it is the very diversity, flexibility and permeability of TESOL that results in an openness to new ideas and influences and to attracting a wide range of talent, many of whom are ‘natural’ teachers despite a lack of formal qualifications. Furthermore, Maley (1992) states that TESOL, due to its uncontrollability and anarchic energy, has escaped the bureaucratic stranglehold exerted on more formal professions. He does, however, admit that the career prospects of TESOL teachers would be greatly improved by closer regulation and consequent recognition of the contribution they make. This would thus result in reduced stress levels for teachers working in the field. Pennington (1992) states that it is vital for the TESOL industry to establish internationally recognised standards and then to disseminate this information across the field of additionallanguage teaching. According to Pennington (1992: 18), TESOL needs to be recognised as “a field of educational specialisation” and unqualified teachers must simply not be allowed to practice TESOL. She states that obtaining a post-graduate degree is only the beginning of becoming qualified in TESOL as skills have to be continually upgraded otherwise “we cannot lay claim to being a profession, not even an emergent or developing one.” Pennington (1992: 18) is also critical of those who enter TESOL by means of other professions despite their qualifications stating that “we have to insist that English literature is not a suitable background for TESOL teaching, nor is a M.A. or PhD in Linguistics, in most cases, the right degree. There really is no excuse for not hiring those with TESOL graduate degrees.” Furthermore she believes that as long as the field remains at a Masters level of specialisation, there will be problems with achieving recognition within tertiary institutions. According to Pennington (1992: 18), the importance of the PhD cannot be overestimated and “we must work to bring the qualification of the TESOL professional up to a PhD level, or else settle in to being second-class citizens in a society of PhD’s.” A PhD specialising in TESOL is not yet offered at South African universities. The University of South Africa (UNISA) is the only university in the country that offers a Masters degree specialising in TESOL. Students who continue to PhD level receive a PhD in English not in TESOL, even if their topic is TESOL-related. Auerbach (1991), however, offers an alternate view stating that while advanced degrees and publications are important, TESOL needs to open the ranks of the profession to those from non-traditional educational backgrounds as sensitivity to and knowledge of students’ realities may be more important qualifications than post-graduate degrees. Yeager-Woodhouse (2003) states that education in general and TESOL in particular, have never enjoyed the status of better established disciplines while Blaber and Tobash (1989: 4) maintain that “until TESOL is viewed as a profession with unique characteristics and until TESOL

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professionals are viewed as having comparable worth to peers and colleagues, it will be difficult to resolve salary, job security and benefit issues.” Breshears (2004) posits that working conditions are an important factor for the advancement of professional status and that there is a cycle of interaction between poor working conditions and low pay which in turn hinders the professionalization process. This leads to a lack of leverage to obtain good material benefits which feeds into the cycle of stress and consequent burnout among teachers. A common complaint in surveys of TESOL teachers is the practice of private language schools employing unqualified and under-qualified teachers who tend to be young and looking to spend a few years teaching English to make money and gain overseas working experience (Blaber et al., 1989; Brown, 1992; Clayton, 1990; Freeman, 1992; Wright, 1988; Pennington, 1992; Senior, 2006). Crookes (1990) maintains that one of the characteristics of the TESOL industry that most attracts its practitioners is the opportunity for a peripatetic existence. Qualified TESOL teachers’ argue that native speaker status does not qualify one to become a TESOL teacher as the quality of tuition invariably suffers and the perception that TESOL instruction is a skill rather than a discipline tends to take hold. This belief supports Braine (1999); Mc Kay (2002); Medgyes (1992) and Philipson (1992) who all maintain that TESOL teachers’ should hold formal qualifications. Breshears (2004) maintains that the practice of employing unqualified teachers runs counter to the hierarchical nature of traditional professions as well as to the processes and structures within a university. This results in a negative perception of TESOL in general and a consequent reluctance to accord TESOL the status it deserves. Johnston (1997: 698) observes that TESOL is a permeable career with high rates of attrition and, as a result, “with large numbers of TESOL teachers entering and leaving the profession every year, it becomes difficult to demand high standards of certification which results in low status and inferior rewards.” Furthermore, Johnston (1999: 38) states that a 1989 study of 160 British TESOL teachers revealed that, “By the age of 45, a very small proportion of EFL teachers are left in full-time employment…For most teachers who have done their five or ten years at the coalface and have collected their qualifications, there is nowhere to go but sideways.” TESOL teachers do not stay in the field long as compared to other professions (Blackie, 1990; McKnight, 1992; Johnston, 1997). This is problematic as Pennington (1992) states that TESOL teachers with a short job tenure are less experienced in their work and in the ways of the political infrastructure and superstructure of the institutions in which they work and with which they interact. This serves to reinforce their marginal status. Crookes (1990) agrees saying that most TESOL teachers do not stay around long enough to achieve a degree of understanding of what being a professional entails. Auerbach (1991) maintains that universities reward length of education, extent of research, number of publications, and degree of specialisation as opposed to excellence in teaching or commitment to the intellectual development of students. Hence

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universities tend to view teachers as less skilled workers and researchers as the true professionals. Auerbach (1991), therefore, recommends that TESOL teachers resist being defined as technicians and fight for the right to be recognized as teacher-intellectuals whose practice informs the development of theory. The professionalization process is also stunted by the dominance of market forces in the TESOL industry. Waites (1999: 424) refers to TESOL as a “mobile and insecure” profession which is deeply affected by external forces ranging from the collapse of economies, the impact of random xenophobic attacks on foreigners and immigrants and the effects of natural disasters to name but a few. The business sector, rather than an international or national governing body, determines who is employed as TESOL teachers. MacLeod (2004) interviewed private language school administrators in Canada who admitted that private language schools are more interested in profits than in providing quality language courses which leads to a situation where large numbers of students pay premium fees for language training and are then rushed through English courses without achieving competence in English. Consequently, TESL Canada has since developed a hierarchy of certification based on university qualifications, TESOL training and teaching experience. However, TESL Canada find themselves in a situation similar to that of South Africa in that they do not have the authority to enforce the standards and private language schools are still free to employ teachers according to the bottom line (MacLeod, 2004). There are no TESOL organisations in South Africa which oversee or set standards for the industry. Consequently anyone may open a language school and offer English language courses. Crookes (1990) states that in the USA, the TESOL standards set by various TESOL bodies have no legal and little professional recognition. Consequently, the owners of language schools which do not maintain educational standards are able to ignore the requests of their teachers with regard to programme upgrading. When those teachers leave in frustration, their places are normally filled by untrained teachers (Crookes, 1990). Thus programme quality declines and there is an increase in teacher cynicism and stagnation which leads to failure to fulfill one’s potential as a creative human being and teacher, poorer quality programmes and fewer successful students. Several researchers (McKnight, 1992; Bascia and Jacka, 2001; Edstam, 2001 and Senior, 2006) have commented on the lack of professional recognition of TESOL teachers. McKnight (1992: 30), for example, examined 116 questionnaire responses from graduates of a postgraduate diploma in TESOL in Australia. He states that in terms of professional recognition TESOL teachers lack a power base within higher education institutions and “may be treated as an underclass by colleagues and superiors.” As a result, there are a number of consequences of the second class status accorded to TESOL which impact on the stress levels of its practitioners. One of the most disturbing is a lack of

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academic credibility (Auerbach, 1991; Carkin, 1997; Stoller, 1997) as TESOL professionals are shut out of the mainstream of academic discourse which in turn, hinders their ability to influence their marginal status. Auerbach (1991: 5) refers to this as TESOL being “assigned to the bottom tier.” Jenks (1997) mentions several problems that arise from the marginalisation of TESOL programmes including: human resource issues, crisis management as a permanent condition, and administrative roles that demand excessive time and that are unrealistically broad in scope. The irony is that despite the marginalisation of TESOL programmes, the programmes are expected to be financially self-sufficient and revenue generating (Rowe-Henry 1997; Staczek, 1984). Eskey (1997: 23) states that “in addition to low status, TESOL programs often have burdensome budgetary arrangements, are required to be self-supporting and are viewed as cash cows expected to generate large surpluses to be used for more prestigious programs.” However, when TESOL teaching staff are given full-time academic appointments, Jenks (1997) maintains that there is a striking effect on the entire programme with faculty and staff perceived as equals and receiving similar rights, responsibilities, salaries and benefits as academics in other disciplines. In addition, there is a sense of having a legitimate purpose on campus with students seen as taking a valid course of study and receiving recognition for their achievements by means of certificates and graduation ceremonies. Thus TESOL is in a challenging and somewhat paradoxical situation in a university context. The field lacks legitimacy and TESOL staff lack status compared to their non-TESOL peers yet TESOL courses and programmes are viewed as desirable by the administration because they have the potential to generate significant revenue. This revenue is then returned to the same institution that marginalizes them (Eaton, 2008). This too is a downward spiral creating considerable stress for the administration of a TESOL department or university-affiliated language school. This stress is often filtered down to the teachers. Jenks (1997) raises an interesting point as he states that recognition for TESOL programmes will not be achieved passively and that the onus actually lies on the staff to publicise and promote the programme so as to validate “its uniqueness as an educational asset within the university and beyond.” This can create an additional burden, one which is non-existent for staff working in fields which are commonly accepted as professions, and a factor that could lead to stress and burnout. Pennington (1992) highlights the importance of TESOL departments in tertiary education stating that TESOL is actually pan-institutional as it serves the goal of internationalising the curriculum and assisting students and faculty in improving their English up to the level required for academic work. Furthermore, she believes that TESOL programmes are potential moneymakers operating on a fee-for-service basis and may be the main drawcard for attracting overseas talent and enrollments. They are thus of special importance in a highly competitive educational market where institutions are competing for the same students.

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In summary, the TESOL profession finds itself in varying states of disorganisation around the world. Its practitioners are found in just about every country in the world and TESOL courses, and the students who attend them, contribute to the economy of the various countries and yet it is a profession characterised by a lack of national and international controlling bodies, a significant degree of lawlessness and unethical behaviour and a lack of internationally accepted standards and entry requirements. This state of affairs has led to the ambiguous nature of TESOL and the continuing debate about whether TESOL teachers are ‘professionals’ or ‘skilled workers’ which has resulted in the consequent uneasy relationship of TESOL and its practitioners with and within university contexts. This ambiguity and confusion influences the lot of those who teach English for a living and who experience not only poor employment conditions, low salaries and significant marginalisation but also a lack of career and professional development. The conditions are, therefore, right for TESOL teachers to experience significant levels of stress and burnout. 2.5 TESOL teacher stress and burnout There have been relatively few studies on the topic of stress and burnout among TESOL teachers. Several researchers have investigated job satisfaction among TESOL teachers and the results of these studies shed some light on what TESOL teachers find stressful. Lanier (1985) studied the relationship between working conditions and job satisfaction at five universityaffiliated language schools in the USA. He discovered weak indications that poor working conditions reduce job satisfaction. Pennington (1991, 1992), Pennington and Riley (1991a, 1991b) and (Sun, 2010) discovered that while TESOL teachers were reasonably satisfied with the intrinsic duties of their job, they were dissatisfied with their pay and the lack of opportunities for advancement. Zare (2007) conducted a case study of nineteen Iranian TESOL teachers who worked for the Iranian Ministry of Education in state primary and secondary schools. Zare (2007) created a job satisfaction questionnaire consisting of eighteen questions about job satisfaction rated on a Likert scale. Zare (2007) found that the teachers derived the greatest job satisfaction from socio-affective sources such as positive relationships with students, parents and supervisors, their students’ achievements and respect from their students. The teachers were, however, not satisfied with educational policies, lack of teaching resources, the low standard of English teaching in Iranian schools and the lack of opportunities to advance their careers. Sun (2010), in a survey of American TESOL teachers, found that the major sources of dissatisfaction lay in factors extrinsic to teaching such as low pay, poor working conditions, lack of status and few opportunities for professional development. This supports Mullock (2009) who advises that offering market-related salaries, improvements in working conditions, greater

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recognition of teachers and more professional development opportunities could slow down and prevent teacher attrition. Several of the teachers surveyed by Sun (2010) mentioned that they had thought about leaving TESOL due to the low salaries and the need for more lucrative fulltime employment. Sun (2010: 152) states, however, that “burnout from longer teaching hours is one of the main reasons” for TESOL teachers leaving the industry. Sun (2010) also maintains that another cause of burnout among TESOL teachers is the constant threat of job insecurity in the TESOL industry. In a 2009 study of job satisfaction among TESOL teachers in south-east Asia, Mullock (2009) discovered that the major sources of TESOL teachers’ satisfaction lay in factors intrinsic to TESOL teaching such as seeing students make progress with the language, learning about different cultures, the social aspects of TESOL teaching and the flexibility of being able to work anywhere in the world. The major sources of dissatisfaction lay in factors extrinsic to teaching such as low salaries, excessive workloads and insecure employment conditions. This finding supports Milstein et al. (1984); Peltzer et al. (2009); Pennington (1991), (1992), and Sun (2010) who report similar findings concerning sources of dissatisfaction. An interesting finding is that of the teachers surveyed by Mullock (2009), a low salary was the second most common reason for leaving with the most common reason for leaving being more interesting work opportunities. The teachers did note, however, that private language school opportunities were limited and most private language schools offered comparatively low salaries. Karavas (2010), in a questionnaire-based study of the job satisfaction of Greek TESOL teachers, found that of 224 TESOL teachers surveyed, 60% were satisfied with the recognition they received from their community, 55% were satisfied with their status in society, but less than half (48%) were satisfied with their status as a TESOL teacher in their respective school. All of the teachers surveyed felt that there was room for improvement as far as their status in society and in their school was concerned. Furthermore, 76% of the Greek TESOL teachers felt that the government did nothing to improve their status and only 24% were satisfied with the range of professional associations and support available for TESOL teachers. In addition, Karavas (2010) discovered that Greek TESOL teachers derived the greatest job satisfaction from interaction with students and professional autonomy and self-growth. The teachers were most dissatisfied with issues relating to school structures and policy making, the ambivalent status of TESOL as a profession, low salaries and few opportunities for advancement. This supports Auerbach (1991); Breshears (2004); Crookes (1997); Davidson (2006) and Mullock (2009) who note that extrinsic factors which are difficult to control tend to cause the most dissatisfaction among TESOL teachers. Karavas (2010: 71) posits that the student-teacher relationship is central in enhancing teacher satisfaction and when that relationship breaks down, “emotional exhaustion, a sense of futility and reduced personal accomplishment creeps into teachers working lives.” According to

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Karavas (2010: 71), an “alarming number of teachers feel emotionally drained, stressed and even burnt out from their work.” The main source of stress was students’ lack of interest in learning English and behavioural problems in the classroom. Furthermore, the teachers expressed dissatisfaction with the working environment in their schools. Sun (2010) surveyed 1, 141 American TESOL teachers in order to examine their working conditions. She discovered that there was inadequate funding for TESOL programmes and teachers’ salaries, many teachers had no medical and pension benefits, job insecurity was rife and there were few opportunities for staff development and growth. In addition, Sun (2010) found that full-time TESOL positions were scarce with 64% of respondents stating that they worked part-time. Almost half of the respondents (48%) received no benefits and 52% stated that they worked in an environment in which they did not have their own desk or office space. This supports Ramanathan et al. (2001) who investigated two MA (TESOL) departments at two American universities and found that in both cases the TESOL staff members were situated in an unpleasant physical environment. Bascia et al. (2001: 340) also report that many TESOL teachers do not have an “equitable space of their own.” In a study of TESOL teachers in Canada, Bascia et al. (2001) describe how some teachers had to share classrooms. Other teachers reported having to teach in libraries, in the teachers’ room or in the staff canteen. Auerbach (1995: 12-13) maintains that this can be seen as a metaphor for the status of TESOL students and teachers in society, saying “When adult ESL classes take place in borrowed space, in church basements or preschool classes with child-size chairs, or having to move from site to site depending on what space is available, messages about students’ marginalisation, the lack of importance of their education, and their reduction to child-like status is clear.” Bascia et al. (2001) emphasise that the need for TESOL teachers to continually renegotiate their positions and re-establish credibility, to appear helpful and not resentful and to be visible team players while being marginalised by structural conditions is daunting and stressful. Bascia et al. (2001) maintain that the benefits of improving school facilities may actually outweigh the benefits derived from increasing pay as improving facilities is a one-off expense while salary increases tend to be annual expenses. Grasse (1982: 4) explored the reasons for high stress levels among American TESOL teachers stating that “Most language teachers have seen the effects of burnout on colleagues, if not on themselves.” Thus stress and burnout are common experiences among TESOL teachers. Grasse (1982) maintains that stress is caused by unrealistic expectations on the part of parents, sponsors, students and administrators regarding what can be achieved in the language classroom and the low status accorded to additional-language programmes. This finding supports Crookes (1997) who states that existing stress is exacerbated by poor working conditions which make it difficult to maintain professional standards and which lead to a

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‘deskilling’ of TESOL teachers. In addition, Crookes (1997) highlights the stressful nature of the fact that there are more qualified teachers than jobs available and the energy used by teachers to try and facilitate communication with students who have limited English proficiency with teachers reporting that they often had to resort to pantomime, the use of facial expressions and gesture to get their point across. Furthermore, many TESOL teachers in the USA experience job insecurity, holding temporary positions with low pay and no benefits. Grasse (1982) maintains that it is common practice for private language schools and universities to employ language teachers at low salaries and on a series of part-time contracts which may be renewed course-to-course or yearly. This supports Auerbach (1991); Breshears (2004) and Pennington (1984) who maintain that the field is characterised by job insecurity and nonmarket related salaries. Mullock (2009), writing nearly 30 years later than Grasse (1982), reports that 25% of the TESOL teachers interviewed during the course of her research on motivation and rewards among TESOL teachers in south-east Asia stated that if they had their lives over again they would not choose to work as TESOL teachers due to the low salaries. Unfortunately the TESOL industry is volatile and easily affected by external forces such as outbreaks of epidemics, changes in visa regulations, and economic downturns. Contracts are thus based on enrolment figures which have led to instability with regard to job security. This supports Sun (2010) who speaks of TESOL teachers’ general disenchantment with the field and Waites (1999) who refers to TESOL as an insecure profession deeply affected by external events. TESOL teachers may thus work at several schools on a contractual basis or hold a second job in the evenings or at weekends just to make ends meet. Consequently, TESOL teachers feel discouraged, frustrated and insecure which leads to stress and the possibility of burnout. One TESOL teacher described the situation thus, “we are replaceable and have no voice” (Sun, 2010). Pennington (1984) interviewed a group of American TESOL administrators based in California about the causes of low morale among TESOL teachers. She discovered that low morale among teachers manifested as anger, anxiety, fear and stress which was associated with a lack of status, lack of security and low self-esteem. Specific causes of low morale included poor facilities, low pay, heavy teaching schedules, lack of benefits and clear status, job insecurity, minimal participation in decision-making and lack of opportunities for advancement and professional development. Suggestions for raising TESOL teacher morale include pay increases, decreasing teaching loads, offering full benefits and long-term contracts and improving the status of TESOL within educational institutions and within the field of education in general. Further suggestions include increasing teachers’ responsibility and decision-making power, professional development and creating leadership opportunities. Blaber et al. (1989) on the basis of an employment concerns survey that sampled Canadian TESOL teachers reported that

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the top five most important concerns were: a salary commensurate with duties and experience (82%); being viewed as a professional (77%); hiring qualified professionals to teach TESOL (75%); adequate health benefits (71%) and a realistic teaching load (70%). Markham (1999) conducted an interview-based, qualitative study of twelve TESOL teachers working in primary and secondary schools in three school districts in the USA. Markham (1999) aimed to discover what the teachers found stressful at work and how they coped with stressful situations. He identified five areas which TESOL teachers considered stressful: relationships with students, colleagues and administrators, time constraints, an excessive workload, unrealistic societal expectations of what could be achieved in a language classroom and feelings of isolation. This supports Crookes (1997) who describes feelings of isolation as similar to a state of alienation which can lead to stress and burnout. In addition, Markham (1999) found that low salaries, ambiguous school policies and a lack of opportunity for advancement exacerbated teacher stress. This supports Karavas (2010); Mullock (2009); Pennington (1984) and Sun (2010) who all report similar findings. In a study conducted by Markham et al. (1996), the researchers discovered that American TESOL teachers working in the primary and secondary school system experienced heightened stress levels. The teachers identified the main sources of stress as: moving classrooms on a daily basis, work overload, teaching students with different levels of English ability in one class, overcrowding of classes, student discipline problems, a lack of support from school administrators and a lack of resource material designed specifically for TESOL students. This supports Zare (2007) who found that a lack of teaching resources leads to feelings of dissatisfaction. In a survey study investigating the stress levels and sources of stress of 123 secondary school TESOL teachers in Hong Kong, Loh (1995) discovered that 48% of those surveyed reported moderate to considerable stress and 16% reported considerable to extreme stress. The top three stressors were marking work, maintaining student discipline and students’ performance in examinations, all intrinsic duties of teaching. The teachers maintained that teaching required a great deal of physical, emotional and mental stamina, TESOL teaching was more stressful than teaching other subjects and a heavy workload had driven most of them to exhaustion. Of the teachers surveyed, 59% maintained that their health was worse or much worse than when they had started teaching and 60% had thought of leaving the teaching profession due to the heavy workload, student behavioural problems and the need for a change. An interesting finding was that extrinsic rewards such as pay and promotional opportunities were not viewed as stressful by the teachers. Loh (1995) maintains that this may be due to the fact that in Eastern countries, which are expanding circle countries, most high schools and tertiary institutions are government-run or subsidized which means that salary increases and promotional

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opportunities are regulated in a standardised system. TESOL teachers, therefore, tend to work steadily towards their goals and do not fear threats of demotion or job loss. Cowie (2011) studied nine TESOL teachers, from the UK, USA, China and Japan, working at universities in Japan, another expanding circle context. Cowie (2011) investigated the teachers’ feelings about their students, colleagues and work through a series of in-depth interviews. The teachers felt that their relationships with their students were overwhelmingly positive. Many of the teachers felt that they had developed a bond with their students through talking, sharing personal stories and humour. They could see the progress their students were making and the students’ growth in terms of independent use of the target language. Relationships with colleagues were a source of satisfaction as long as the relationships were based on mutual respect. However, a number of teachers felt that their colleagues’ criticised students’ abilities unnecessarily which created a dispiriting and negative atmosphere. This in turn, led to frustration and stress. Some of the teachers mentioned that anger towards colleagues had caused deep-seated and long-lasting resentment. With regard to the organisation, the teachers felt that there was a huge gap between their expectations and the reality of working in a language school. The perceived lack of trust of teachers by the administration and divisive systems of rank led to negative emotions. Teachers commented that the rank and hierarchy system had resulted in intense competition with clear divisions of status between permanent and temporary staff. This had effectively killed collaboration and creativity in the various university-affiliated language schools. During the course of the interviews, the teachers identified the following aspects of the Japanese university system as particularly stressful: a lack of a coherent or integrated programme of study, large class sizes with wide ranges of abilities and low student motivation levels. This supports Arends (2007) who states that large class sizes are one of the reasons that teachers in sub-Saharan Africa avoid postings to rural schools. Kiggundu (2007) also cites large classes as one of the reasons for the failure of Outcomes-Based Education in South Africa with Olivier et al. (2003) reporting secondary school classes as large as 60 students in the George area of the Western Cape province. In this case large class sizes are exacerbated by poor facilities (Olivier et al., 2003). This supports Pennington (1984) who found a link between poor educational facilities and low morale in the USA. Ironically these are all complaints normally associated with developing countries and their education systems. Clandfield (2010), in an article about TESOL teacher burnout, maintains that TESOL teachers feel stressed by student apathy, discipline issues in the classroom, excessive testing imposed by administrators, lack of recognition and no possibility of change or improvement. Several teachers spoke of the ‘ugly’ side of TESOL characterised by poor working conditions, long working hours, a lack of job security and low salaries. This supports Bascia et al. (2001); Karavas (2010) and Sun (2010) who report similar findings. Johnston (1997) conducted a study based on

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life history interviews with seventeen TESOL teachers in post-communist Poland. The interview transcripts were treated as discourse with the intention of discovering what discourses teachers drew on in constructing stories about their lives. Johnston (1997) states that due to the small sample, he hoped to achieve transferability in the sense that the teachers’ stories would be familiar and resonate with other teachers as opposed to aiming for generalizability. He discovered that the teachers considered themselves to be underpaid and overworked and often endured difficult physical and psychological conditions. In addition, he found that the teachers in the study moved from job to job revealing a skilful adaptation to circumstances rather than progression along a career path. All of the teachers expressed commitment in day-to-day terms and spoke of the possibility of leaving TESOL teaching. Most of the teachers held multiple jobs due to low wages and their life histories lacked a discourse of professionalism and had a sense of having a career over which the teachers had only a modicum of control. Furthermore, in a report commissioned by the CfBT Education Trust, on the state of TESOL in the UK, Williams and Williams (2006) revealed that TESOL teachers’ generally had vague career plans and aspirations with a few teachers admitting to having no plans at all. Mullock (2009) discovered that many of the TESOL teachers, in her study of motivation and rewards among TESOL teachers in south-east Asia, felt that the field had no career structure and were concerned about the general lack of recognition and appreciation. Waites (1999) investigated the professional life cycles and professional development of TESOL teachers in Geneva, Switzerland and Sydney, Australia. According to Waites (1999), major areas of concern for TESOL teachers were the perception of a lack of a career path, few opportunities for promotion, low status, poor working conditions, low salaries and a lack of job security. This supports Bascia et al. (2001); Karavas (2010) and Sun (2010) who report the same areas of concern. In Waites’ (1999) research she discovered that job security among TESOL teachers ranged from nil for freelance teachers to some security for those who had yearly renewable contracts, to secure permanent positions for the very few who taught in international organisations. Hargreaves (2002) states that professional cultures and permanent employment have given way to performance contracts which has resulted in an erosion of trust in leadership and between colleagues and the replacement of long-term loyalty with short-term commitment. This supports Johnston (1997) who maintains that the TESOL teachers he interviewed expressed commitment in day-to-day terms. Griffith (2005) also expresses concern at the growing trend of offering TESOL teachers ‘freelance work’ with no guarantees and Mullock (2009) believes that language schools can combat teacher attrition by offering more permanent employment. Coombe (2008) states that TESOL teachers are expected to maintain high standards in the classroom and negotiate potentially stressful interactions with administrators, colleagues and

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students while contending with low pay and shrinking institutional budgets. Coombe (2008) maintains that the early physical, behavioural and emotional warning signs of long-term stress and burnout include chronic fatigue, anger at those making demands, self-criticism, cynicism, negativity, irritability, a sense of being besieged, frequent headaches, weight loss or gain, depression and feelings of helplessness. This supports Maslach (2003) who, in addition, cites consistent late coming, high absenteeism, poor job performance and a lack of interest and commitment as typical burnout symptoms. Mede (2009) investigated stress and burnout and the effects of personal variables such as age, gender and teaching experience and perceived self-efficacy in eliciting social support from colleagues and principals. The participants were sixty-three TESOL teachers working at an English-medium university in Istanbul, Turkey. The teachers taught intensive English courses to students at an upper-intermediate level. The students had to pass an English proficiency examination in order to continue their academic studies. Mede (2009) used an adapted version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey to measure burnout and two subscales developed by Friedman and Kass (2002): the Perceived Self-Efficacy in Eliciting Social Support from Colleagues (PSESSC) and the Perceived Self-Efficacy in Eliciting Social Support from Principals (PSESSP). He discovered that teachers who reported a lack of social support from colleagues were more likely to experience feelings of emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation whereas a lack of support from principals was a consistent predictor of depersonalisation and reduced personal accomplishment. Mede (2009) states that these findings are in line with previous findings that a lack of support from colleagues and principals was closely associated with teacher burnout. This finding echoes that of Brouwers and Tomic (2001) who found that teachers who received little or no social support viewed themselves as ineffective at being able to elicit such support. Greenglass, Burke and Konarski, (1997) and Sarros and Sarros (1992) report similar findings. Mede’s 2009 study also revealed that burnout was more prevalent among younger TESOL teachers who lacked experience and were more prone to excessive job involvement. This supports Friedman and Farber (1992) and Lackritz (2004) who state that younger teachers tend to be under greater pressure than older teachers to build a career. In addition Watts and Robertson (2010) believe that older, more experienced teachers have developed better coping strategies. Fullan (2001) cites a 1992 study by Fessler and Christensen in which they interviewed 160 teachers across the career span and found that career frustration and burnout are typical of mid-career teachers. They also discovered that teachers suffering from burnout may regain their enthusiasm and experience renewed personal growth if they engaged in a programme of personal development. Waites (1999) discovered that teachers exhibited a greater awareness of the range of professional development that they required than school administrators did who tended to be more limited in their perception of teachers’ needs. Waites (1999)

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recommends that a personalized approach needs to be taken to professional development such as allowing teachers the opportunity of taking sabbatical leave to conduct research like academic staff and sending teachers to TESOL conferences. According to Waites (1999), TESOL teachers working in Geneva and Sydney viewed professional development as including developing new skills, attending workshops, collaborating with colleagues, reflecting on teaching practices and increasing self-awareness. This finding supports Kabilan (2007) who advocates self-reflection, the sharing of critical reflections between colleagues and the importance of studying further. This in turn supports Kahn (2008) who views professional development as a long-term strategy. The teachers interviewed felt that developing course materials, mentoring new teachers, and attending conferences did not actually constitute professional development. Crookes (1997) maintains that TESOL teachers are not given the tools to do their job adequately. The administrative and managerial systems in language schools do not allow professionals to function in a professional way. Furthermore, language schools lack the ability to adapt and adjust to new situations and demands. Thus much of the teaching remains at the level of coping. According to Crookes (1997: 75), language schools need to become “learning institutions” by incorporating programmes of professional development for teachers coupled with internal evaluation components so as to assist teachers in reaching their career goals. In addition, language schools should encourage and support teacher action research (Crookes, 1997). Research, therefore, reveals that TESOL teachers experience a considerable amount of stress and that burnout is a reality in the TESOL industry. The causes of stress and burnout cover the same range of stressors as that of teachers in general. In the case of TESOL, however, these stressors are exacerbated by the prevalence of poor working conditions and are characterized by long teaching hours, a lack of market-related salaries and benefits, job insecurity, a lack of office and classroom space, minimal or no teaching resources and ambiguous school structures and policies. In addition, TESOL teachers are often exploited by the management of unscrupulous language schools. This has led to an erosion of trust between teachers, administrators and management, intense competition between teachers and a lack of collegiality among teachers. Furthermore, TESOL teachers complain of the difficulty of teaching students of different ages and abilities in a single class, student passivity and behavioural problems, an emotional overload based on constant interactions inside and outside the classroom, the weight of unrealistic expectations, time pressure and a lack of support structures and professional development.

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According to Brown and Ralph (1992), most schools try to deal with stress by looking at the symptoms rather than removing the causes of stress. Brown et al. (1992) recommend that school management, administrators and teachers draw up a holistic, stress-reducing action plan together. Stress is a whole-school issue and needs to be addressed by the entire staff working together to identify and reduce stressors and develop appropriate supportive strategies. 2.6 Support structures Social support can reduce the impact of stressors on psychological well-being and job satisfaction and reduce the risk of physical illness (Shumaker and Czajkowski, 1994). Studies of teachers have, however, produced mixed results. Pierce and Molloy (1990), in a study of 750 secondary school teachers in Australia, found that high burnout teachers reported having lower social support than low burnout teachers. However, Griffith et al. (1999) in a questionnairebased study of 780 primary and secondary school teachers in London, UK found that the relationship between teacher stress and social support at work was independent of demographic factors, the school environment and occupational grade. Griffith et al. (1999) found that both high and low ratings of social support at work were received from teachers at the same schools which indicates that similar challenges can be perceived as more or less stressful depending on the individual’s perception of the social environment. We can conclude, however, that good relationships with colleagues and a harmonious atmosphere at work must be important factors in mitigating stress at work. An effective support network provides practical and emotional support for teachers who experience stress in the workplace. Miller, Zook and Ellis (1989) state that the most common support networks consist of supervisors, colleagues, family and friends. Starnaman and Miller (1992), however, maintain that supervisor support is more effective in reducing stress than the support of colleagues. Greenglass et al. (1997) used the Maslach Burnout Inventory to survey 833 Canadian primary and secondary school teachers. Greenglass et al. (1997) discovered that collegial support is more influential in reducing the impact of teacher stress or burnout than support from family and friends. One can conclude, therefore, that support within the organisation from supervisors and colleagues is more effective than a sympathetic ear from family and friends. Interestingly, Glazer and Hannafin (2006) and Taylor, Sherman, Kim, Jarcho, Takagi and Dunagan (2004) state that cultural differences may influence whether teachers actually seek social support. Taylor et al. (2004) discovered that Korean and Asian-American teachers in the USA were less likely to actively seek social support than teachers from Europe and North America. The researchers suggest that while the collectivist orientation of Asian culture is conducive to the sharing of stressful problems, there may also be a subtle discouragement of such efforts in order to maintain group harmony.

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Zhang et al. (2007) maintain that a teacher’s social network should cover three areas which are emotional support or the provision of caring and nurturing, informational support which includes physical and material assistance and instrumental support which includes the provision of facts and advice. Research suggests that teachers who have a strong support network tend to be more resistant to the effects of stressful events (Greenglass et al., 1997; Brouwers et al., 2001). Brouwers et al. (2001) studied the relationship between teachers’ perceived self-efficacy in eliciting social support and consequent burnout among 277 secondary school teachers in the Netherlands. Brouwers et al. (2001) discovered that teachers who felt that they received little or no social support from their supervisors and colleagues also had little hope that they could elicit such support and had a generally negative view of their ability to do so. In addition, Greenglass et al. (1997) found that teachers with high levels of burnout were less likely to form friendships at work or to establish close relationships with their colleagues. Zembylas and Papanstasiou (2004), state that teachers already tend to be isolated from their peers due to the solitary nature of their jobs. This supports Crookes (1997) who describes this isolation as a state of alienation and Markham (1999) who maintains that feelings of isolation are a major cause of stress among TESOL teachers. Teachers, therefore, have little opportunity to share their successes or failures with colleagues. In addition, teachers who experience burnout tend to isolate themselves even more and their feelings of exhaustion and hopelessness could prevent them from seeking support Chang (2009) reports that teachers’ perceptions of social support have a strong link with teacher burnout. This supports Griffith et al. (1991) who highlight the importance of the individual’s perception of stressful events. Kahn et al. (2006) maintain that positive social support provides opportunities for the reappraisal of a current stressful situation and may provide new ideas for adaptive responses to work stress. Teachers’ perceptions of social relationships are also related to feelings of burnout. When teachers’ perceive that they invest more in their work and their schools than what they get back, or when outcomes from students are lower than they had expected, they are prone to burnout (Van Horn, Schaufeli and Enzmann, 1999). In a longitudinal study of 920 Dutch teachers working in primary, secondary and tertiary level institutions, Taris, Van Horn, Schaufeli and Schreurs (2004) discovered that the inequity teachers experience in their three main exchange relationships —with students, colleagues and schools —is related to burnout, especially feelings of emotional exhaustion. Mede (2009) investigated stress and burnout among TESOL teachers in Turkey. He discovered that teachers who received little social support from supervisors tended to depersonalise their interactions with students and colleagues and felt a sense of reduced personal accomplishment. The study also revealed that burnout was more prevalent among younger TESOL teachers who lacked experience and were more prone to excessive job involvement.

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This supports Friedman et al. (1992) and Lackritz (2004) who report on the incidence of higher burnout among younger teachers. The management of language schools need to be more supportive and show greater understanding of the challenges of TESOL teaching, a greater concern for their teachers’ and an understanding of the toll that teaching takes on the individual’s emotional, mental and physical wellbeing. Thus language schools need to look at ways of decreasing the various stressors that impact on teachers such as reducing class sizes and the consequent administrative load, making language courses less test and exam-oriented, giving teachers greater flexibility in curriculum design and lesson preparation and creating a supportive and collegial environment in which teachers can develop professionally. In addition, language schools need to improve the working conditions of TESOL teachers by providing secure employment with market-related salaries and benefits. Markham et al. (1996) maintain that stress levels among TESOL teachers can be partly attributed to inappropriate programme design and a lack of support from administrators. Recognition of the effort that the majority of teachers put into their jobs would go a long way to alleviating feelings of stress, according to Loh (1995). In her research, Loh (1995) discovered that 60% of the teachers interviewed had thought seriously about leaving teaching. This leads to another concern which is the possibility that large numbers of TESOL teachers are just surviving in the profession and do not enjoy working in their chosen field. The end result of this must be a lack of morale and motivation, decreased work performance and negative attitudes towards teaching. Sun (2010) advises TESOL teachers to be proactive and to consider forming their own supportive learning communities and engaging in peer mentoring. She, therefore, believes that teachers should build their own support systems so as to reduce stress. These support systems will also enable them to remain current in the field and sustain their own professional development. Mullock (2009), however, states that the literature strongly suggests that by paying attention to the extrinsic factors of employment such as job stability, a market-related salary, medical and pension benefits, and opportunities for promotion and professional development, language schools can slow down and even prevent teacher attrition. These findings support Manuel (2003) who calls for more empirical research into the retention of quality teachers with a focus on exploring the everyday lives of teachers. According to Mullock (2009), in addition to these factors, positive teacher-administrator relationships should be encouraged as a supportive school climate is an important factor in teacher motivation and performance and in avoiding teacher burnout. This supports Manuel (2003) who advocates long-term pastoral care and mentoring programmes for new teachers. Grayson and Alvarez (2008), however, caution that the creation of a supportive school environment may necessitate a shift in philosophy, resource allocation and training opportunities. Nevertheless, it is important for management to create a school climate that offers collegial and intellectual

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support for teachers in order to encourage self-growth and improve job satisfaction and retention rates. Research, therefore, reveals that a strong social support network can reduce the impact of stressors and the incidence of burnout. The facts are, however, that teachers in general and TESOL teachers in particular, are simply not receiving the emotional, informational and instrumental support they need in order to be the best teachers they can be (Zhang et al., 2007). Supervisors and colleagues are vitally important links in the provision of this support and thus conditions need to be created — by the management of language schools —in which support networks are encouraged and nurtured or at the very least in which teachers can form their own support networks. TESOL teachers who do not receive any form of support within the school environment are thus more likely to experience stress and consequent burnout. 2.7 Coping strategies Stress and burnout may be alleviated by psychological and social resources. Steptoe (1991) maintains that coping responses affect the impact of stress on psychological and physiological well-being. Thus the way in which people currently cope with stress and potential burnout can affect the way in which they view a situation, the challenges involved and their perception of the stressors. Coping strategies range from positive engagement with the problem and the associated emotions to avoidance, disengagement or withdrawal (Tobin, Holroyd, Reynolds and Wigal, 1989). According to Griffith et al. (1999), little research has been done on psychological coping and the perception of stress among teachers. Furthermore, the reliability and validity of the research findings in the field tend to be criticized because investigators often do not use standardized stress inventories (Griffith et al., 1999). According to Maslach et al. (1981), interventions should address the three components of burnout, namely emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment. Furthermore, Maslach et al. (1981) state that the focus of support and coping strategies should be on changing the job situation rather than the more traditional focus of trying to change the person by making it the individual’s responsibility to lower their stress levels. Thus Maslach et al. (1981) view burnout as a result of stressors which emanate from the social environment in which the individual works. This view supports Schonfield (2001) who states that burnout is a consequence of the individual’s environment and not a result of a deficiency in the individual. Most preventative measures attempt to change the individual and rely on the assumption that the source of burnout lies within the person and not the working environment. Maslach et al. (1997) state that many psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and social workers support this perspective and view burnout as a psychiatric disorder that is amenable to individual treatment approaches. The organisation, therefore, abdicates

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responsibility. However, Hamberger and Stone (1983), Lowenstein (1991) and Mikkelsen, Ogaard and Lovrich (2000) disagree with Maslach et al. (1981) and Schonfield’s (2001) views, maintaining that it actually is the individual’s responsibility to develop coping skills. These coping skills include reducing isolation by seeking out interactions with others, learning how to change one’s reactions to stressful situations so as to restore perspective and balance, creating goals to work towards in order to change negative perceptions of one’s job, clarifying sources of frustration and stress and learning how to manage time and resolve conflicts. Other researchers believe that creating a more engaging workplace which provides employees with a realistic workload, a degree of control over their work, acceptable working conditions, fair treatment, the resources necessary to do their jobs, a strong social support network and market-related salaries is a better way of developing strategies to cope with burnout (Greenblatt, 2002; Maslach et al., 1981, Maslach et al., 1997). Organisational interventions may include employee counselling programmes, wellness programmes30 which address physical and emotional issues, job rotation to enhance skills and reduce boredom, and interpersonal skills training (Maslach and Goldberg, 1998). Olivier et al. (2003) state that the management of schools and the various education departments in South Africa must acknowledge that the emotional and physical health of teachers is vital for effective job functioning and thus provision should be made for balance in their work programme and for support in coping with stress. Cowie (2011) maintains that there are three important issues which are often overlooked at language schools in particular and these are the importance of collaboration, allowing teachers to express their emotions and the importance of encouraging an atmosphere of emotional warmth, both inside and outside the classrooms. Coombe (2008) agrees stating that language schools have a responsibility to provide TESOL teachers with adequate resources and clear job descriptions and expectations so as to reduce role conflict and ambiguity, and create clear lines of communication between teachers and administrators. Hepburn and Brown (2001) and Schwab (2001) maintain that teachers’ who are satisfied with decisions and the degree of support provided by school administrators have a more positive attitude towards teaching. The researchers suggest that language schools experiment with interventions aimed at improving teachers’ collegial relationships within the school so as to promote social connections and align teachers’ goals and values closer to their occupational expectations.

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Morrison and MacKinnon (2008:28) state that wellness programmes are only effective if employees are motivated to participate. Motivation may be stimulated by offering incentives, ensuring clear communication about the benefits of the programme, ensuring confidentiality, offering long-term programmes, and hosting the programme on the employers’ time.

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Language schools, therefore, need to provide a supportive working environment which is conducive to communication, cooperation and collaboration. Teacher collaboration and the consequent creation of a professional learning community have been linked to increased satisfaction in teaching. This supports Nias (1989) who maintains that interpersonal relationships should be at the centre of every aspect of school life. Woods and Weasmer (2004) advocate the benefits of ‘collegial investment’ while the creation of a stronger sense of teaching efficacy is supported by Ashton and Webb (1986) and Vescio, Ross and Adams (2008). Troman and Woods (2000) maintain that improved work relationships lower stress levels and provide teachers with an enhanced capacity for coping with change. This supports Little (1990) and Zembylas and Barker (2007). Linville and Belt (1982) state that teacher training courses should include information about the nature of stress and burnout, what constitutes stressful classroom situations, the results of prolonged stress and suggestions on how to cope with stress and burnout. Linville et al. (1982) believe that this would better prepare teachers for stressful situations. This supports Olivier et al. (2003) who state that stress management should form part of the curriculum for potential teachers. Griffith et al. (1999) also maintain that training teachers to analyse challenging situations before reacting to them may reduce maladaptive coping responses which could lead to the prevention of accumulated stressors in teachers’ work environments. Carver, Scheier and Weintraub (1989) identify a number of coping strategies used by teachers to manage stress. These include a positive reinterpretation of the teaching role, acceptance of the limitations of the teaching role and seeking support from colleagues and supervisors. This is supported by Starnaman et al. (1992) who report that supportive supervisors reduce stress among teachers and Greenglass et al. (1997) who state that collegial support is effective in reducing stress and burnout. Carver et al. (1989) also mention that some teachers are unable to cope with stress which can lead to behavioral and mental disengagement from the teaching role and in some cases, the use of alcohol and drugs in order to cope with stress. Cooper and Kelly (1993) found that teachers who used palliative coping strategies such as drinking alcohol, smoking and taking medication reported greater stress arising from work overload and interpersonal relationships. This supports Olivier et al. (2003) who maintain that teachers who lack coping mechanisms tend to turn to alcohol and drugs to alleviate stress. Furthermore, McCormick (1997) maintains that the perception of higher stress is associated with such immature defensive coping responses. Suls and Fletcher (1985) mention cognitive and behavioural disengagement as negative coping strategies that are implemented directly, without the help of others and with immediate consequences. Suls et al. (1985) maintain that disengagement can be beneficial in the shortterm, however, relying on this strategy for a long period of time may lead to an overload of

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work and disrupt classes and student learning. Chan and Hui (1995), in a survey study of 415 Chinese secondary school teachers, found that this kind of avoidance behaviour correlated significantly with high levels of burnout which may be detrimental to the individual’s health. Griffith et al. (1999) found that teachers reporting high job strain had elevated blood pressure and heart rate in the evenings which suggested an inability to unwind after work. Brown et al. (1992) state that excessive stress in the teaching profession can result in increased smoking and above average drinking, an increased incidence of heart disease, increased absenteeism, low resistance to infection and fatigue and early retirements. Grasse (1982) suggests that teachers use a range of strategies to cope with stress such as reviving interest in their subject by varying materials and teaching techniques, exchanging and sharing information with colleagues, setting realistic goals for their classes to achieve, getting to know their students as individuals, facing problems in a realistic manner and seeking viable solutions to classroom problems. Coombe (2008) advises stressed teachers to establish positive working relationships with their students, colleagues and administrators, to try and focus on teaching rather than becoming overwhelmed by paperwork, and to create a balance between work and leisure time (Grosch and Olsen, 1995; MacBride, 1983; Maslach, 1982). In addition, Coombe (2008) suggests that teachers become more involved in the profession through conference attendance, mentoring, publishing and research. This supports Olivier et al. (2003) who advocate teachers’ taking responsibility for their own empowerment. In Loh’s (1995) study of secondary school TESOL teachers in Hong Kong, she discovered that the teachers used various ‘soft’ methods to cope with stress including talking to friends, listening to music, shopping, reading books and magazines and watching television and movies. Loh states that most of the teachers surveyed were women which may account for the results (ninety-four women and nineteen men). Loh (1995) also found that seeking counselling for stress was the least popular suggestion by far. This may be due to the stigma associated with admitting that one is stressed as others often view it as a sign of weakness and an inability to do the job. Alternatively it may support Taylor et al. (2004) who suggest that Asian teachers are discouraged from seeking assistance with stress and burnout in the interests of maintaining group harmony. Patrick (1984a and 1984b) reports that people who experience burnout are often seen as complainers who will not take responsibility for their actions. This creates the impression that burnout is as a result of a flaw or weakness in the individual. Employees may thus try to hide any signs of burnout, deny problems and avoid seeking help. Hall, Woodhouse and Wooster (1988) found evidence that experiential, in-service courses in human relations enable teachers to change their behaviours in ways that reduce stress. Hall et al. (1988) surveyed fifty-six British teachers and found that experiential learning and working

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together in small groups played an important part in teacher training and reducing stress. Stress management should, therefore, be approached in a systematic way by the school and involve identifying stressors, planning and implementing stress management policies and providing plenty of opportunities to discuss shared experiences based on successful coping strategies. According to Brown et al. (1992), strategies which may be included in such in-service training include assertiveness techniques, communication skills, effective time management, learning how to delegate, relaxation techniques and the development of support networks. Stein and Cutler (2002) recommend teaching individuals how to adjust their nutrition and sleeping patterns, and training teachers in anger management, biofeedback, positive social skills and self-talk strategies. It should be noted that Keable (1996) maintains that coping involves learning both mental and physical skills. Keable (1996) suggests that it is not sufficient to just teach positive thinking and relaxation techniques as individuals need time to practice applying these techniques to real-life situations. Thus teachers need to be educated about the signs and symptoms of stress and burnout so that they will know when to apply the techniques they have learned. Troman and Woods (2000) conducted qualitative research using life history interviews with a sample of British urban and rural school teachers who had been diagnosed with anxiety, depression or stress-related illnesses but who had chosen to remain in the profession. Troman et al. (2000) felt that the sample may be regarded as ‘critical cases’ in that they highlighted issues common to all teachers rather than unique to themselves. Troman et al. (2000) explored the perceptions of the teachers with a focus on how they had remained in the profession by making adaptations to their roles. These adaptations included retreatism which involves submitting to the role changes, withdrawing to the classroom and working in isolation. Retreatism is a source of stress according to Crookes (1997) and Markham (1999). Other adaptations included downshifting which involves reducing one’s workload, responsibilities and status and self-actualization which can involve re-routeing one’s career through finding new opportunities or relocating to a different school which is more in line with one’s values. Some of the teachers interviewed stated that they had coped with stress and gained greater selffulfillment by downshifting which involved reducing their working hours and increasing their commitment to activities outside the school such as playing sport, involvement in a religious or social club, a hobby and doing voluntary work. However, several of the teachers mentioned that this required a financial sacrifice that not all teachers were in a position to make. Austin, Shah and Muncer (2005) investigated ways of coping with stress among thirty-eight American and British secondary school teachers using the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ). The five most popular ways of coping were planning and active problem solving,

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exercising self-control, seeking social support, confronting the problem and distancing oneself from the stressful situation. The least popular method of coping was escape-avoidance. Austin et al. (2005) discovered that the teachers with the highest stress levels were the most likely to use negative coping strategies such as escape-avoidance as it allowed the individual teacher to decrease involvement and ultimately withdraw from the situation. Participants also mentioned a number of activities which helped them to alleviate work stress including being active in a social club, spending time alone, exercising31, listening to music and talking to friends. Bullough and Baughman (1997), in a ten-year longitudinal case study of an American teacher’s development, found that self-regulatory knowledge plays a critical role in emotion regulation. This knowledge refers to how experts know themselves and how they process the knowledge they own. Thus teachers need to be self-reflective in monitoring their own stress levels and emotions when they are in the classroom. Olivier et al. (2003) suggest keeping a daily teaching journal as a record of classroom experiences and as a means of reflecting on one’s emotions. Gross (2002) suggests regulating emotion through reappraisal rather than suppression. Reappraisal involves changing one’s thinking about a situation so as to decrease its emotional impact whereas suppression involves inhibiting one’s emotions. According to Chang (2009), teachers are likely to neglect or suppress their emotions. Thus suppressing, faking or hiding one’s emotions can lead to greater overall burnout. Chang (2009) maintains that teachers should accurately label their emotional experiences, reflect on their emotions and identify ineffective patterns of judgment of classroom events. Liljestrom, Roulston, and deMarrais (2007) state that school management must acknowledge that teaching is an emotional practice and a form of emotional labour. Teachers’ emotions are inseparable from their selves, identities and relationships with others, emotions are shaped by the experience of power and powerlessness and emotions can vary with culture and context. Teachers, therefore, should be encouraged to reflect on and talk about their emotions to their supervisors and colleagues rather than suppress them. Khan (2008) maintains that professional development constitutes a viable coping strategy for stress as it encourages professional interactions with colleagues which can lead to personal growth, it develops a critical stance towards professional work and it leads to reflective attitudes and a new self-understanding. However, Kahn (2008) cautions that professional development is a long-term strategy which requires hard work and commitment. It is important to note that if there is no appropriate support from management and colleagues, unsuccessful attempts at professional development may lead to fatigue and withdrawal. Professional 31

The teachers with the lowest stress levels used both competitive and non-competitive exercise more often than those with higher stress levels. Teachers with the highest stress levels used exercise significantly less.

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development includes a variety of activities which can enhance career growth such as in-service training which can be part of weekly staff meetings, further education, reading books and journal articles to stay up-to-date with the field, joining international professional associations such as The International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) or Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and attending and delivering papers at professional conferences. Furthermore, participating in regular workshops32 can be used as a means of raising awareness about current issues, discussing new ideas, evaluating textbooks and creating new materials. Cowie (2011) researched the emotions that TESOL teachers in Japan felt about their students, colleagues and work. He found that participants who experienced a lack of collegiality and organisational support often turned to the wider TESOL community for collaborative growth and development opportunities. The teachers used professional networks as a way of overcoming vulnerability and a lack of career structure. This included joining professional organisations, email discussion lists and researching joint academic projects. Cowie (2011: 240) states that “Teachers, especially those in very isolated contexts, need to meet others in order to make meaning about what it is they do.” One teacher commented that, “Just talking to others who have similar interests and are also inquisitive about teaching and learning, is cathartic and helps you get things out of your system” (Cowie, 2011:238). MacBride (1983); Riordan and Saltzer (1992) and Suran and Sheridan (1985) maintain that burnt-out individuals should not wait for the organisation to step in and solve their problems but need to embark on rigorous self-analysis such as how one’s desire for recognition leads to overwork or how early family experiences have shaped unconscious expectations of a job. Riordan et al. (1992) believe that self-analysis will assist the individual in adjusting unrealistic expectations, clarify spiritual and philosophical values and enable teachers to determine whether their personal ideals match their job situation. Yip (2006), however, cautions that when an individual has a heavy workload and is already feeling burnt-out, self-reflection may in reality be more of an additional burden than a help. MacBride (1983) and Clandfield (2010) advocate physical solutions to stress including healthier living habits, improving nutrition and fitness levels, and embarking on relaxation programmes such as meditation and yoga. Thus becoming involved in outside interests and hobbies all correlate with lower levels of burnout. Seidman and Zager (1991) investigated positive coping approaches used by 365 American secondary school teachers and found that competitive and low-level physical exercise reduced 32

Crookes (1990) recommends a focus on developing local workshops organised and presented by the TESOL teachers concerned rather than a visiting ‘expert’ from a far-off high-prestige organisation. Crookes (1990) believes that teachers’ selfconfidence will not develop if they are treated as if they are ignorant and need to be told what to do by more highly skilled and educated individuals.

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stress levels which supports Austin et al. (2005) who found exercise to be a positive coping strategy. Other researchers recommend meditation which is supported by Anderson, Levinson, Barker and Kiewra (1999) who, after a five-week standardised meditation programme with ninety-one American secondary school teachers, discovered that meditation, two to five times a week, resulted in a significant decrease in teacher stress. Donatelle and Hawkins (1989) state, however, that wellness programmes tend to reduce burnout temporarily and fail to prevent stressful experiences from recurring. According to Maslach et al. (1997), burnout has been underrated and trivialised in the workplace as it does not pose major risks for physical injury or death unlike other job hazards. Consequently, the erosion of feelings and skills over time is not seen as an immediate crisis. People thus misjudge the risks and view burnout as “the whining of wimps who can’t handle serious work and can’t admit to failure” (Maslach et al., 1997:21). Maslach and Goldberg (1998) state that there is rarely any evidence, even anecdotal, to support the conclusion that any of the recommended strategies prevent burnout or assist those who suffer from burnout. Hunnicut and MacMillan (1983) maintain that there are only a few cases where an intervention has been developed, implemented and evaluated in terms of its effectiveness in reducing burnout and, even in those cases, the data is suggestive not compelling. Furthermore, Heaney and Van Ryn (1990) observe that individual strategies are relatively ineffective especially in the workplace as the individual tends to have less control at work than in other contexts. Sauter and Murphy (1995) agree saying that job stress and burnout are not taken seriously by organisations in general as stress and consequent burnout develop slowly over time and the warning signs are often overlooked. 2.8 Conclusion A review of the literature reveals that teachers in general are stressed for a variety of reasons ranging from student misbehavior and work overload to a lack of collegiality and inadequate support systems. Prolonged stress can lead to behavioral, mental and physical disorders which impact on the individual and the quality of teaching. In addition, prolonged stress can lead to burnout. Teachers who work within the primary and secondary school sectors are in a more fortunate position than TESOL teachers as they work within a government-sanctioned and controlled framework which serves to protect the rights of teachers to a large extent. In addition, they have a relatively standardized system of pay grades and promotional prospects. TESOL teachers, however, find it difficult to enter the formal education system without the prerequisite qualifications. This means that internationally and nationally, private language schools are the main employers of TESOL teachers. In South Africa, there is no governing body that sets standards for the TESOL industry at this stage. The result of this is that TESOL teachers

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face the same stressors as other teachers while working in an unregulated industry rife with abuses. Private language schools are businesses and as such, their main goal is to make a profit. Unfortunately, TESOL teachers are generally viewed as expendable and little time or money is spent on nurturing, training and developing teachers. Opportunities for advancement are very limited and private language schools generally do not offer much in the way of support structures for teachers who experience stress or are in danger of burnout. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the TESOL profession is struggling to gain legitimacy on university campuses while private language schools are under threat from university-affiliated language schools which students favour due to their association with a well-known brand. In addition, TESOL teacher training courses do not provide trainee TESOL teachers with the coping skills to deal with and overcome stress inside and outside the classroom. Consequently, teachers tend to burn out after a few years and leave the industry. It is grave indeed when a profession has such a high attrition rate that there are very few mentors or guides for those who enter the field. The English language teaching industry is a growing sector in the South African economy and thus creates employment opportunities for many people and different types of businesses. It is, therefore, vital that different aspects of the TESOL teaching industry in South Africa are explored, studied and researched. The South African TESOL landscape is unchartered territory as there are no current studies that focus on the experiences of South African TESOL teachers or the nature of the TESOL industry in South Africa.

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Chapter 3: Methodology 3.1 Introduction The original focus of research in foreign language teaching lay in the analysis of language, that is, a focus on the phonology, morphology, grammar and syntax of a language. The emergence of the field of TESOL was specifically associated with an interest in the acquisition of English as a foreign, second or additional language in children and adults (Edge and Richards, 1998:337). Research in TESOL was generally positioned within a rationalist paradigm in which the quest for ‘truth’ was deductive and based on reason and not emotion. Hesse-Biber and Leavy (2011: 32) describe rationalism as “encompassing the objective logic of inquiry, combined with objective and systematic empirical observation and verification and characterised by unbiased inquiry, accuracy and objectivity.” Edge et al. (1998: 337) maintain that as TESOL sought to establish itself as a recognised academic discipline, “the attraction of rationalism was strong in the context of the existing hierarchy of respect in the academic world at that time” as reflected in the division between quantitative or ‘hard’ and qualitative or ‘soft’ approaches to knowledge. The past thirty years, however, have seen a growing recognition of the educational orientation of TESOL as contrasted to ‘pure’ Linguistics or even Applied Linguistics, and an increasing sensitivity to the importance of contextual factors and qualitatively-oriented research including mixed method research. Wright (2010: 259) states that a new agenda of theory and practice has emerged over the years as the field has incorporated the ideas and practices of reflection33, teacher cognition and professional teaching cultures. This movement has, to a certain extent, displaced the original roots of additional-language teaching in Linguistics, Applied Linguistics and Psychology and has led to a new knowledge base which has, in turn, contributed to the formulation of theory about language teachers’ personal and career progression as they learn to teach, the various practices of learning how to teach and an insider’s view of teachers’ lives (Wright, 2010: 259). Edge et al. (1998) maintain that it would, however, be a mistake to assume that the emergence of new paradigms such as mixed method research have simply been accepted and that new researchers can merely ignore the broader debates and tensions between quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative approach to research has been, to a large extent, privileged with the attempt to find results that are generalisable and less influenced by subjectivity, and thus generally viewed as more important than using more qualitativelyoriented approaches. This, according to Edge et al. (1998), has led to a form of induced inferiority in the human and social sciences regarding the status of qualitative research which 33

This includes an emphasis on learning to teach and becoming a ‘thinking’ or reflective teacher, viewing self-reflective activities as learning experiences especially the use of diaries and journals, personal enquiry into one’s beliefs, narratives and the professional contexts of learning and teaching and the importance of learning from experience (Wright, 2010:273).

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has long been perceived as lying at the periphery of the more traditional paradigms of the natural sciences and has led to the trend towards quantitative research which makes use of mathematical, statistical and computational techniques. Not all TESOL researchers are in favour of the shift from quantitative to qualitative approaches towards research in the field. There are TESOL researchers who express concern at the shift to more qualitative and contextualised research studies. Richards (2003: xx) states that the emergence of qualitative inquiry in the field of TESOL has led to a concern about the quality of the research produced. He states that, “There is a common misconception that QI [qualitative inquiry] is soft, that it can make do with a few interviews and perhaps a dash of transcribed talk.” Richards (2003) also believes that qualitative research is not an easy route for a researcher to take as true qualitative research is a craft and requires the development of appropriate skills which he believes have been badly neglected in the TESOL field. Watson-Gegeo (1988: 575) criticises the superficial nature of many qualitative studies in TESOL which are characterised by impressionistic accounts in which a researcher ‘dive-bombs’ into a setting, makes a few observations and then takes off again to write up the results. Edge et al. (1998) agree believing that there is a danger that the absence of an accepted and established tradition of research in TESOL leaves the door open to poorly constructed qualitative research, and thus provides the ammunition necessary for rationalists to deny the value of such research. Edge et al. (1998) state that the rejection of rationalistic assumptions and overwhelmingly quantitative research studies imposes a responsibility on the researcher to position a research study within an increasingly complex conceptual and contextual environment. Edge et al. (1998: 347-48) thus describe TESOL researchers as part of a field which “sits sometimes awkwardly at the intersection of linguistics and education and are perhaps committed to doing ‘boundary work’ if they wish to avoid dogmatism.” In addition, researchers should be able to “accept and explore the unsettled realities of our in-between-ness” (Edge et al., 1998: 347-48). In this research study, I34 argue that there is a place for both approaches: a controlled and structured, quantitative approach in phase one of the study which yielded numerical data that was quantifiable and generalisable, tempered with the participant-oriented, naturalistic, detailed and contextualised qualitative data in phase two. Therefore, the researcher hoped to obtain the best of both approaches so as to discover the answers to the research questions and obtain insight into the lives and minds of the research participants.35 34

The first person has been used throughout this thesis as is the norm in primarily qualitative research in the English Studies Department. 35 The quantitative measure was mainly used to select the sample. For this reason, descriptive rather than more detailed, inferential statistical techniques were used. The researcher thus views this research study as leaning more heavily in the direction of a qualitative study.

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Edge et al. (1998: 351) argue that the significant contribution of a doctoral thesis in TESOL can, therefore, be claimed in three ways. These are the further development of an appropriate paradigm for human studies, the extension of the qualitative research tradition in TESOL and the establishment of a knowledge base of TESOL contexts. In this research study, I hoped to extend the qualitative research tradition as there is very little research that has focused on the experience of burnout, available support networks and the coping strategies of TESOL teachers within the context of private language schools. This supports Tracy (2010: 841) who states that a worthy topic for doctoral research should be relevant, timely, significant and interesting and hopefully contain surprises that “shake readers from their common-sense assumptions and practices.” With TESOL becoming increasingly popular as a viable career choice, nationally and internationally, and South Africa becoming increasingly well-known as an affordable and desirable destination for English language learning, it is imperative that more research is done on the TESOL teaching experience. Furthermore, I hope that this research provides insight into the lives of the teachers who participated in this study. I also believe that this research study has contributed to the knowledge base of TESOL contexts as it is the first study of its kind in South Africa. 3.2 Aims of the research study The aim of this study was, therefore, two-fold: Firstly, to discover whether TESOL teachers working at private language schools in Johannesburg experienced burnout by using the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey36 to determine burnout levels; o This question was answered by the results of the Maslach Burnout InventoryEducators Survey which constituted phase one of the study; and Secondly, to explore the remaining research questions by means of in-depth, semistructured interviews which constituted phase two of the study: o What factors, both inside and outside the classroom, caused stress for TESOL teachers working at private language schools in Johannesburg?; o What support structures were available at the various private language schools in Johannesburg for TESOL teachers who experienced stress and burnout?; and o What coping strategies were used by TESOL teachers working at private language schools in Johannesburg to manage stress and burnout? Thus, the results of phase one led to phase two of the research study.

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There are three main formats of the Maslach Burnout Inventory: MBI-Human Services Survey, MBI-Educators Survey and MBI-General Survey. [Source: www.mindgarden.com, (accessed 20-12-2010)].

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3.3. Chapter overview This chapter begins with looking at a mixed method research design, firstly by defining mixed methods research and then justifying the choice of a mixed methods research design. This is followed by a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of mixed methods which leads into an overview of the quan→QUAL structure of the research design and then a brief look at other research studies that have used the same or a similar design. This then leads into a discussion of phase one, the quantitative phase, which consists of the Maslach Burnout InventoryEducators Survey. This discussion includes a look at the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative research and the advantages and disadvantages of surveys. This is followed by a discussion of phase two, the qualitative phase, which consists of semi-structured interviews, the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research and the advantages and disadvantages of using semi-structured interviews. I then focus on the methodology by looking at the data collection process and the research instruments in detail. Firstly, I discuss phase one, the MBI-ES, in terms of its construction, development, scoring and administration, the reliability and validity of the MBI and finally, the limitations of the MBI. Secondly, I discuss phase two, the semi-structured interviews including a brief look at the role of the researcher in qualitative interviews. This leads into a discussion of the reliability and validity of semi-structured interviews. Finally, I look at the limitations of interviews. I then discuss the data in detail starting with the subjects and the various limitations placed on the sample which is followed by a description of the pilot study. After that, I look at the analysis of the data starting with a description of the analytical techniques used and then the phase one, MBI-ES data analysis, and the phase two, semi-structured interviews data analysis. This is followed by a look at the limitations of the research study and the various ethical considerations involved in the research study. 3.4 Research design: Mixed methods research This research study was designed as a mixed method research study. Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004: 14) state that mixed method research is the ‘third research paradigm’ in educational research.37 It is defined as “the class of research where the researcher…combines quantitative and qualitative research techniques, methods, approaches, concepts or language into a single study” (Johnson et al., 2004: 17). The researchers view mixed methods as the ‘third wave’ or ‘third research movement’ that offers a logical and practical alternative to ‘pure’ quantitative or qualitative research studies. Hesse-Biber et al. (2011: 279) add that “The combination of two different methods can create a synergistic research project in which one method enables the other to be more effective.” Furthermore, combining methods can assist

37

Johnson et al. (2004:14) prefer to use the terms ‘mixed research’ or ‘integrative research’.

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the researcher in “tackling highly complex problems involving several layers of understanding that may require different analytical techniques.” Johnson, Onwuegbuzie and Turner (2007: 129) state that “Mixed methods research is an intellectual and practical synthesis based on qualitative and quantitative methods. It recognises the importance of traditional quantitative and qualitative research but also offers a powerful third paradigm choice that often provides the most informative, complete, balanced and useful research results.” Thus mixed methods research partners with the philosophy of pragmatism. It combines principles imported from quantitative and qualitative research that are helpful in producing defensible and useable research findings, it relies on combined viewpoints in terms of data collection, analysis and inference techniques and includes local and broader sociopolitical realities, resources and needs (Johnson et al., 2007). Definitions of mixed method research are as diverse as the ways in which to conduct such research. Johnson et al. (2007: 119-120) asked leaders in the field of mixed methods research to define the concept. Dr Huey Chen, a leading contributor to the development of mixed methods research, states that “Mixed methods research is a systematic integration of quantitative and qualitative methods in a single study for purposes of obtaining a fuller picture and deeper understanding of a phenomenon. Mixed methods can be integrated in such a way that quantitative and qualitative methods retain their original structures and procedures which constitute a pure form of mixed methods or the qualitative and qualitative aspects can be adapted, altered or synthesised to fit the research and cost situations of the study which constitutes a modified form of mixed methods.” Professor Jennifer Greene, a proponent of alternative forms of social programme evaluation with a particular interest in qualitative, democratic and mixed methods approaches, defines mixed methods research as an approach “that ideally involves more than one methodological tradition…along with more than one kind of technique for gathering, analysing, and representing human phenomena, all for the purpose of better understanding.” Professor Hallie Preskill, an expert on organisational learning and instructional technologies with a focus on mixed methods research, describes mixed methods research as, “the use of data collection methods that collect both quantitative and qualitative data…using a mixed methods approach increases the likelihood that the sum of the data collected will be richer, more meaningful, and ultimately more useful in answering the research questions.” Johnson et al. (2007: 113) state that mixed methods research attempts to fully respect the wisdom of quantitative and qualitative approaches while seeking a workable middle solution. Thus mixed methods research is an approach to theory and practice that attempts to consider multiple viewpoints, perspectives and positions. Greene (2005: 207) agrees, describing mixed

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methods research as an ‘emancipator’, because it is an approach that welcomes all legitimate methodological traditions and attempts to facilitate methodological diversity. Furthermore, Guba and Lincoln (2005: 201) state that it is possible to blend elements of one paradigm into another, so that one actually engages in research that represents the best of both world views. However, there is not yet broad agreement regarding how to define mixed methods research. Morse (1991), for example, states that mixed methods research must come from either a quantitative or a qualitative dominant paradigm, that is, both paradigms cannot be equal, whereas Johnson, Meeker, Loomis and Onwuegbuzie (2004) maintain that many researchers hold ambiguously nuanced positions that typically involve a blending of assumptions, beliefs and preferred analytical techniques. Furthermore, Rossman and Wilson (1994) complain about researchers using mixed methods research as a ‘cover’ for combining numbers and words in a shameless and eclectic manner while Buchanan (1992) mentions the uneasy alliance between quantitative and qualitative methods. Sutton (1997: 97) believes that despite support for mixed methods research, there is still a general preference for quantitative approaches, and researchers should “conceal or downplay” their use of qualitative techniques if they want to have research papers published. This supports Tracy (2010: 838) who believes that the social sciences have become more methodologically conservative over the past decade citing government and funding agencies’ preference for quantitative, experimental and statistically generalisable research. Sandelowski (2000: 254) states that mixed methods research should not be used because of the misguided assumption that more is better, that it is the fashionable thing to do or that qualitative research is incomplete without a quantitative component. Hesse-Biber (2010: 457) maintains that qualitative data is often employed as “handmaiden” or is “second best” to quantitative data with the goal being to use qualitative data merely to illustrate quantitative results or to assist in building more robust quantitative measures such as survey research questions. She states that some researchers fear that using mixed methods in this way leads to a superficial ‘adding’ of qualitative methods that is little more than sprinkling in some ‘vignettes’ to provide narrative examples of the conclusions already reached by means of the quantitative methods. Teddlie and Tashakkori (2009: 121) hold the view that quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods are merely the ‘outlooks’ of different communities of researchers who are posited as the three major groups doing research in the social and behavioural sciences. Thus other possible research practices should not be overlooked. Symonds and Gorard (2010: 122) state that, at present, methodological limitations are manifest when students are only taught these three basic research approaches or where mixed methods is favoured as the best method.

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According to Symonds et al. (2010), this is becoming so common that funding bodies may start to show preference for mixed methods studies which could lead to single method studies being marginalised. Gorard (2007: 3), however, advocates moving towards the universal underlying logic of all research, a place where “all methods have a role and a key place in the full research cycle, a place that leaves little or no space for favoured paradigms.” Furthermore, Gorard (2007: 1) states that mixing methods is wrong, not because methods should be kept separate but because they should not have been divided at the outset, that is, mixed methods can effectively reinforce the binary positioning of the quantitative and qualitative paradigms, “effectively marginalising the methodological diversity within them.” Despite such concerns about mixed method research, the approach continues to gain in popularity. Hesse-Biber et al. (2011: 287) state that in the past decade, there has been tremendous growth in the development of mixed methods-specific journals and publications which is a sign of its increasing validation. Philosophically, mixed method research uses the pragmatic method and system of philosophy. Johnson et al. (2004: 17) maintain that pragmatism offers researchers a useful middle ground methodologically and philosophically. Pragmatism involves the use of induction or the discovery of patterns, deduction or testing of theories and hypotheses, and abduction or uncovering of facts and then relying on the best of a set of explanations for understanding one’s results. Pragmatism is, according to Johnson et al. (2004: 18), “expansive, creative, inclusive, pluralistic and complementary and allows the researcher to take an eclectic approach.” The key characteristics of pragmatism include: Knowledge is constructed and based on the reality of the world we live in and our experiences; An emphasis on the reality and influence of the inner world of human experience; An endorsement of fallibilism, that is, current beliefs and research conclusions are rarely, if ever, viewed as perfect, certain and absolute; A focus on eclecticism and pluralism including the view that different and even conflicting theories and perspectives can be useful and that observation, experience and experiment are all useful ways to gain an understanding of people and the world; Strong and practical empiricism and a belief that theory informs practice, that is, practical theory and a value-oriented approach to research; The view that current truths, meaning and knowledge are tentative and change over time, thus what we discover from research should be viewed as provisional truth; and

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Organisms are constantly adapting to new situations and environments and our thinking follows “a dynamic, homeostatic process of belief, doubt, inquiry, modified belief, new doubt, and new inquiry…in an infinite loop.” This process leads the researcher to attempt to improve upon past understandings (Johnson et al., 2004: 18). Thus both quantitative and qualitative research designs and approaches are important and useful and both can be enhanced by taking a pragmatic viewpoint. The goal of mixed methods research is not to replace either of these approaches but to draw from the strengths and minimise the weaknesses of both in a single research study. There are a number of similarities between quantitative and qualitative methodologies including the fact that both methodologies describe data, construct arguments and explanations from the data, and then speculate about why the outcomes observed happened as they did. Furthermore, both incorporate safeguards into their enquiries to minimise bias and other sources of invalidity and untrustworthiness. Johnson et al. (2004: 21) state that mixed methods research has the following strengths: Quantitative results can be used to develop and inform the purpose of a qualitative study by means of a two-stage sequential design. Words in the form of narratives are used to add meaning to numbers while numbers can be used to enhance narratives; Can answer a broader range of research questions and add insights and understanding that may be missed when the researcher is confined to a single method; o This supports Johnson et al. (2007) who maintain that mixed methods research provides a fuller picture and deeper understanding of the data. The convergence and corroboration of findings can provide evidence for a stronger conclusion. This supports Hesse-Biber (2010) who states that triangulation provides a more robust understanding of results and can sometimes lead to contradictory results which can be a goldmine of new findings and Symonds et al. (2010) who maintain that multiple findings can either confirm or confound the researchers original ideas thus reducing the chances of inappropriate generalisations; o Tracy (2010: 843), however, warns that triangulation like notions of reliability and validity, does not always fit neatly with research from interpretive, critical or post-modern paradigms that view reality as multiple, fractured, contested or socially constructed. The argument being that just because all data comes to the same conclusion does not mean that this specified reality is correct. Thus findings collected by different methods will differ in form and specificity to a degree that can make their direct comparison problematic (Bloor, 2001: 385). Can enhance the validity and reliability of research findings. Chapelle and Duff (2003) state that triangulating multiple perspectives, methods and sources of information adds texture, depth and multiple insights to a research study.

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A mixed methods approach can, however, have a number of weaknesses. According to Johnson et al. (2004: 21), these include: Researchers have to learn about multiple methods and approaches and understand how to mix them appropriately. This supports Hesse-Biber et al. (2011) who maintain that mixed methods studies require trained researchers who understand both quantitative and qualitative techniques; Mixed method approaches tend to be more time-consuming than using only a quantitative or qualitative approach and can also be expensive; and Concerns have been raised about the credibility, trustworthiness and validity of mixed methods research. This supports Ihantola and Kihn (2011: 43) who express concerns about mixed methods research. Ihantola et al. (2011) maintain that the mixing of methods can lead to weaknesses in the internal and external validity and reliability of the quantitative component of a research study and the contextual validity, generalisability, transferability and procedural reliability of the qualitative component. Johnson et al. (2004: 17) state that research in general is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, complex and dynamic. Consequently, researchers need to complement one method with another and should understand multiple methods used by other researchers so as to facilitate communication and understanding, promote collaboration and produce solid research. A non-purist or mixed position, therefore, allows researchers to mix and match design components that offer the best chance of answering their specific research questions. Johnson et al. (2004: 17) maintain that “often mixed methods research provides a more workable solution and produces a superior product.” This supports Sandelowski (2000: 254) who states that “When done well, mixed-method studies dramatize the artfulness and versatility of research design.” Johnson et al. (2004: 18) believe that an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative and qualitative approaches enables a researcher to combine approaches, methods and strategies in such a way that the resulting mix of approaches is likely to result in complementary strengths and non-overlapping weaknesses. This is one of the main justifications for using mixed methods research, that is, that the product will be superior to mono-method studies. 3.4.1 quan→QUAL research design Morgan (1998) provides strategies for designing a mixed methods study. He suggests four mixed methods research designs based on the sequencing (time ordering) and importance (priority) of each method. According to Hesse-Biber et al. (2011), a researcher should ask two questions:

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What is the primary research method, and what is the secondary or complementary method? and; Which method will come first and which will come second? According to Morgan (1998) and Morse (1991), deciding on the primary research method is termed the paradigm emphasis. This involves deciding whether to give the quantitative or qualitative components of a mixed study equal status or to give one paradigm dominant or priority status. The time ordering of the qualitative and quantitative components of a mixed study is also important and can be done sequentially or concurrently. Johnson et al. (2004) present nine mixed-method designs with notation based on Morse (1991). Morse’s (1991) notation system is regarded as extremely important by Leech and Onwuegbuzie (2009: 272) as such typologies provide more credibility to the fields of education and the behavioural and social sciences by providing examples of research designs that advance a “common language for the mixed methods field… and provide guidance and direction for researchers.” Therefore, when constructing a mixed methods design, the researcher must make two primary decisions: whether to operate largely within one dominant paradigm or not and whether to conduct the phases concurrently or sequentially. Table 3 shows the possible timeorder decisions (Johnson et al., 2004:22). Table 3: Mixed-Method Design Matrix with Mixed-Method Research Designs Shown in the Four Cells Concurrent Sequential Equal status QUAL + QUAN QUAL →QUAN QUAN →QUAL Paradigm Emphasis Decision Dominant status QUAL + quan QUAL → quan QUAN + qual qual → QUAN QUAN →qual quan → QUAL Note: ‘qual’ stands for qualitative; ‘quan’ stands for quantitative, ‘+’ stands for concurrent, ‘→’ stands for sequential. Capital letters denote high priority or weight and lower case letters denote lower priority or weight (Johnson et al., 2004:22).

This research study, therefore, consisted of a mixed method design consisting of a quantitative phase followed by a primary or dominant qualitative phase (quan→QUAL).38 The data was collected sequentially with phase one being the quantitative phase and phase two, the qualitative phase. The reasons for this choice were that it was important to determine at the 38

Johnson et al. (2004:20) refer to this as a quantitative mini-study followed by a qualitative mini-study in one overall research study.

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outset whether the TESOL teachers suffered from burnout as measured by the MBI-Educators survey as the results of this provided a link to the qualitative data on the causes of stress and consequent burnout, available support structures and the types of coping strategies used. Thus the research study used a quantitative method, the MBI-Educators survey, to ‘set the scene’ and obtain the data that laid the foundation for the qualitative phase, the semi-structured interviews. Johnson et al. (2004: 19) states that in a mixed methods qualitative-dominant study, the researcher may conduct qualitative interviews but also supplement the interviews with a closed-ended instrument such as a survey to systematically isolate and measure certain factors. If findings are supported across different approaches, then greater confidence will be held in the conclusion. If findings conflict then, at the very least, the researcher has greater knowledge and can modify interpretations and conclusions accordingly. According to Onwuegbuzie and Leech (2004) in many cases the goal of mixing methods is not to search for corroboration but to expand one’s understanding. To be considered a mixed method research design, however, the findings must be mixed or integrated at some point so the quantitative phase informs the qualitative phase that is, sequentially (Johnson et al., 2004: 20). This is supported by Leech et al. (2009: 267) who state that in a mixed method study, the mixing of quantitative and qualitative techniques occurs within one or more stages of the research process or across these stages. Thus according to Leech et al. (2009), the current research study is a fully mixed, sequential, dominant status design (quan→QUAL) which involves conducting a research study that mixes quantitative and qualitative research within one or more of, or across the stages of, the research process.39 Greene, Caracelli and Graham (1989: 259) coded the justifications for combining quantitative and qualitative research. The coding scheme isolates five justifications for combining quantitative and qualitative research. The justifications are: Triangulation which involves the convergence, corroboration, correspondence or linking of results from different methods. In coding triangulation, emphasis is placed on seeking corroboration between quantitative and qualitative data; o Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, Turner (2007: 115) and Morse (1991) identify two types of methodological triangulation:  Simultaneous, which is the simultaneous use of quantitative and qualitative methods in which there is limited interaction between the 39

Bryman (2008) maintains that in much mixed method research, the quantitative and qualitative findings are presented side by side or more or less separately. After reviewing 232 journal articles, he discovered that in only 18% of the articles were quantitative and qualitative findings genuinely integrated to provide a comprehensive picture of the data.

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two methods during data collection but the findings complement each other at the data interpretation stage; and  Sequential triangulation in which the results of one approach are necessary for planning the next method as in this research study. o Thus quantitative and qualitative approaches can be combined to triangulate or corroborate findings which lead to greater credibility and validity as the combined approaches enhance the integrity of the findings. Complementarity which involves seeking elaboration, enhancement, and clarification, that is, the use of qualitative data to illustrate quantitative findings; Development in which the results from one method help to develop or inform the other method, where development includes sampling and implementation, as well as measurement decisions; Initiation which involves the discovery of paradoxes and contradictions, new perspectives on frameworks, and the re-working of questions or results from one method with questions and results from the other method; and Expansion which seeks to extend the breadth and range of enquiry by using different methods for different aspects of the research, that is, expansion provides a more comprehensive account of the area in which the researcher is interested and involves building upon the original quantitative or qualitative findings. Thus the following justifications apply to this research study: sequential triangulation, complementarity and expansion. This research study used sequential triangulation in which the results of one approach — the quantitative phase which consisted of the MBI-Educators survey — were necessary for the implementation of the qualitative component, the semi-structured interviews. The qualitative data sought to illustrate and expand on the quantitative findings thus satisfying complementarity and finally, the research study possessed the quality of expansion as the use of mixed methods enabled the researcher to extend the breadth and range of the enquiry. This is supported by Brown (2001) who states that combining surveys and interviews in a single research study can be an effective strategy. Bryman (2006: 97) undertook a content analysis of 232 mixed method research studies in which quantitative and qualitative approaches were combined in various ways. In studies with a dominant quantitative approach, questionnaire research and the structured interview dominated. In studies with a dominant qualitative approach, the semi-structured interview dominated. Furthermore, Bryman (2006: 102-3) found that survey methods (82%) and qualitative interviews (71%) accounted for the vast majority of methods employed in the research studies with 57% of the studies based on a research design which combined a survey instrument and qualitative interviewing.

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Research studies that have used a quan→QUAL design successfully and which are similar to this research study include Van Tonder et al. (2009: 207) who conducted a mixed method quan→QUAL study on the origins of burnout among fifty-nine secondary school educators in three state schools in Gauteng, South Africa. In the quantitative part of the study, Van Tonder et al. (2009) used the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey, which revealed which participants scored high and low on the burnout indicators. In the qualitative part of the study, semi-structured interviews were used to explore the nature of and reasons for burnout. The interviews provided rich data on the participants’ perceptions, feelings and experiences. An interesting finding of this study was that none of the participants were found to be suffering from high levels of burnout with only five scores actually approaching burnout levels. Van Tonder et al. (2009) defended their findings by maintaining that burnout is not a short-lived phenomenon. Instead it is a syndrome that gets progressively worse over time and those who were just approaching burnout at the time of the study may actually have burnout in a few years’ time. The Van Tonder et al. (2009) study uses a similar methodology to the current research study. The current study, however, focuses on the experience of TESOL teachers. Cephe (2010) used a quan→QUAL design to investigate the factors leading to burnout among thirty-seven TESOL teachers working at a university-affiliated language school in Turkey. Cephe (2010) conducted an initial survey to determine burnout levels using the Teacher Burnout Scale (McCroskey, Richmond, Wrench and Gorham, 2001). Teachers suffering from burnout were then interviewed using open-ended, unstructured interviews. Cephe (2010) coded the interview data by means of identifying major themes. The findings of this study revealed that all of the TESOL teachers manifested burnout to some degree with six of the teachers scoring at the severely affected level of burnout. This group stated that they felt doubtful about their career choice and experienced a great deal of loneliness, insecurity and isolation in their daily working lives. Furthermore, the teachers’ identified the main source of their burnout as being interactions with school administrators who they described as indifferent, rude, incompetent and as enforcing a constant round of new rules and regulations without consultation. Bates (2012) conducted a mixed methods quan→QUAL research study which explored burnout among 353 part-time lecturers on short-term employment contracts at two community colleges in Illinois in the US. The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey was administered to participants in order to determine overall levels of burnout. Qualitative methods, specifically semi-structured interviews and document review, were then conducted in order to provide further insights into these areas, specifically the risk factors for burnout, strategies that prevent and address burnout, and the role of unions in burnout prevention. Bates (2012: iv) discovered elevated burnout levels among part-time faculty who held multiple part-time positions, those

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who taught lower level courses and those whose prospects of full-time employment were diminishing. Bates (2012) also found that there were mismatches in the areas of workload, control, reward, community and fairness. 3.5. Phase One: The quantitative phase The survey This research study consisted of two phases. The first phase consisted of a quantitative component, the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey. According to Johnson et al. (2004: 18), quantitative research is characterised by deduction, confirmation, theory and hypothesis testing, explanation, prediction, standardised data collection and statistical analysis. Johnson et al. (2004: 19) and Nunan (1992: 4) state that the main strengths of quantitative research are: To enable the researcher to test hypotheses which were constructed before the data were collected. In this case the hypothesis was that a combination of stressors experienced by TESOL teachers working in private language schools in Johannesburg would lead to the experience of stress and burnout; Research findings can be generalised when the data are based on random samples of sufficient size; Research can be replicated on many different populations and subpopulations which leads to greater generalisability; It results in reliable, ‘hard’ and replicable data and assumes a stable reality; It allows researchers to assess cause and effect relationships as situations can be constructed in such a way that the confounding influence of many variables can be eliminated. Thus Nunan (1992) states that quantitative research seeks facts or causes of social phenomena without regard to the subjective states of individuals; Numerical data can be collected quickly and precisely; The use of statistical software means data analysis is less time-consuming; Research results are relatively independent of the research and less likely to be affected by bias which leads to greater credibility; and It is useful for research involving large groups of people. And, according to Johnson et al. (2004: 19), the main weaknesses of quantitative research are: Researchers may miss out on exploring important factors because of restrictions presented by the research instrument. Quantitative research may force responses or people into categories purely because they do not ‘fit’ the restricted categories of the research instrument; and

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The knowledge produced may be too abstract or general for direct application to local situations, contexts and individuals. Surveys are printed forms for data collection, which include questions or statements to which the participants have to respond, often anonymously. Seliger and Shohamy (1989: 172) state that surveys are used mostly to collect data on phenomena which are not easily observed, such as attitudes, motivation and self-concepts. According to Nunan (1992: 140) the researcher does not ‘do’ anything to the participants except observe them or ask them to provide data, thus the research consists of collecting data on things and people as they are, without trying to alter anything. Seliger et al. (1989: 126; 172) and Brown (2001: 35) maintain that surveys have several advantages: Surveys can be conducted in the presence of the researcher, by mail, by email or by phone; Can be self-administered; Can be given to all of the participants involved at the same time; Are less expensive to administer than other data collection techniques such as interviews; Anonymity can be ensured which means that participants tend to share information of a sensitive nature more easily; Allow for control of subconscious bias in which participants may falsify their answers to please the researcher which is a common problem with interviews; The items can be designed to limit responses to a narrow range of possibilities or to allow greater flexibility in the responses; Can cover a wide geographical area; and The data is uniform and standardised across participants and consequently more accurate. Disadvantages of surveys include: A low response rate which may influence the validity of the findings. Brown (2001) suggests that researchers should use the following methods to increase response rates: send a covering letter with the survey, use short surveys, and follow-up with a phone call; Incomplete answers which may render the survey data unusable; The researcher is often unable to control the environment in which the participants complete the survey. In addition, the researcher is unable to control the order in which participants answer the questions;

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Can be rigid, artificial and impersonal; Data tends to be restricted to written answers; Need to be kept relatively simple so as to accommodate a wide range of participants from different language and educational backgrounds; and Respondents falsifying their responses (Seliger et al., 1989: 126; 172 and Brown, 2001: 35). In this research study, the researcher did not permit participants to take part in the semistructured interviews in phase two if they had not completed the MBI-ES survey in phase one. It was imperative to determine whether burnout existed in the surveyed teachers before progressing to the interviews as this information shaped the choice of participants for the interviews and the structure of the interviews. 3.6. Phase Two: The qualitative phase Semi-structured interviews The second phase consisted of a qualitative component, the semi-structured interviews. According to Johnson et al. (2004: 18), qualitative research is characterised by induction, discovery, exploration, theory or hypothesis generation, the researcher as the primary instrument of data collection and a qualitative analysis of the data. Maxwell (2005: 9) states that “In a qualitative study, you are interested not only in the physical events and behaviour taking place, but also in how the participants in your study make sense of these and how their understandings influence their behaviour.” Thus the focus on what events ‘mean’ or how they are perceived by the participants is central. Chapelle et al. (2003) state that it is important for largely qualitative studies to explore the details and meanings of experience rather than attempt to test a hypothesis. Qualitative research can be divided into three approaches: constructivist-interpretive; critical or Marxist and feminist. In this research study, a constructivist-interpretive approach was used whereby a subjective reality was assumed which consisted of stories and meanings grounded in natural settings. In other words, this subjective reality subsumes the existence of an objective reality uncoloured by emotions, feelings and perceptions. This view is supported by Edge et al., (1998: 341) who state that qualitative findings are created interactively rather than discovered from a privileged perspective. The researcher was also supportive of a more critical viewpoint as she believes that many of the injustices experienced by TESOL professionals are rooted in the lack of a power base in the profession, in the way that TESOL is perceived at educational institutions and in society in general. This researcher bias is based on my experience as a TESOL teacher and is acknowledged at the outset. Hesse-Biber (2010: 456) supports this view tempered with a critical perspective in which she maintains that qualitative research not only

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offers a multi-layered view of the nuances of social reality but also does not privilege the interests of those who occupy positions of authority and power within a given society. In addition, qualitative approaches promote deeper listening between the participants and the researcher which enables the researcher to discover deep beliefs and values that only emerge through dialogue. Pinar (1988: 148) supports this view and maintains that “The price for seeking impartiality and comprehensiveness is superficiality and triviality…instead we need to use our personal and shared stories to excavate below the surface of daily life.” Furthermore, a critical paradigm involves examining issues of power, control and ideology that dominate one’s understanding of the social world, that is, how power dynamics within a social system serve to generate a given set of meanings about social reality and lived experiences. This has particular relevance in the field of TESOL where TESOL teachers are often employed on a series of shortterm contracts which result in the teachers finding themselves in a position of weakness and unable to improve their working conditions due to the nature of their employment. Edge et al. (1998: 341) maintain that educational developments include a growing interest in the lives of teachers and their personal narratives which have begun to permeate the world of TESOL bringing with them new attempts to make space for the actual voices of those who have previously been merely represented. Furthermore, Hesse-Biber (2010: 455) states that qualitative research aims to understand how individuals make meaning of their social context. This social context is not independent of the individual’s perceptions but is created through the social interactions of individuals with the world around them. Qualitative research is thus committed to multiple views of social reality whereby the participants become ‘the experts’ as the researcher interprets their views of reality. Johnson et al. (2004: 20) and Nunan (1992: 4) state that the strengths of qualitative research are: Data are collected in a naturalistic setting. Qualitative research can describe phenomena, as situated and embedded in local and situational contexts, in rich detail. Richards (2009: 149) agrees maintaining that qualitative researchers “reject artificially constructed situations”; The data are based on the participant’s own categories of meaning. This is supported by Richards (2009: 145) who refers to this as “participant-oriented research” and Nunan (1992) who highlights the importance of the actors’ own frame of reference within a dynamic reality; It provides a description and understanding of respondents’ personal experience of phenomena, that is, an insider’s perspective;

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It is useful for studying a limited number of cases in depth and provides individual case study information; It allows for cross-case comparison and analysis and can be used to describe complex phenomena; The researcher can use the primarily qualitative method of grounded theory to generate inductively a tentative but explanatory theory about a phenomenon; and Qualitative approaches are thus responsive to local situations, conditions and stakeholder’s needs. Johnson et al. (2004: 20) maintain that the weaknesses of qualitative research include the following: Findings may be unique to the participants in the research study. Thus the knowledge produced may not be generalisable to other people or other settings which affects the credibility of the research study; o Therefore, there may be a focus on individual results and a failure to make connections to larger situations or the possible causes of the results. The density of qualitative data may make it difficult to make quantitative predictions and to test hypotheses and theories; Data collection can be time-consuming; and Results may be more easily influenced by the researcher’s personal bias. Merriam (2009) disagrees, however, stating that in qualitative research, rigour is derived from the researcher’s presence, the nature of the interpretation of perceptions and the rich, thick descriptions. Talmy and Richards (2011: 1) state that interviews have long been used as a method in applied linguistics. In quantitative research, for example, interviews have been used to generate insights into cognitive processes in language learning, motivation, language attitudes and language proficiency. In qualitative research, interviews have featured in ethnographic studies, case studies and action research covering a diverse range of topics such as investigations into student and teacher identities, experiences, beliefs and life histories (Talmy et al., 2011: 1). Hesse-Biber et al. (2011: 102) state that there are three types of interviews: structured, semistructured and open-ended. Structured interviews consist of the same series of questions used with all the participants. The data consists of respondents answers to specific questions and has a high degree of standardisation giving the researcher a high level of control. It is thus easier to compare respondents and generalise from such uniform data. In open-ended interviews, the researcher has a particular topic for the study but allows the participants to take the conversation wherever they want it to go. The researcher is not, therefore, tied to asking a

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specific set of questions but is more interested in letting the conversation develop and having the respondents naturally touch on or bring up the topics of importance. The researcher may ask a few broad questions and then allow the respondent to take the discussion forward. The data produced is non-standardised and the researcher has the least control (Hesse-Biber et al., 2011). Nunan (1992) recommends the semi-structured interview as one of the best means of discovering information as it is allows the researcher to focus on topics and issues and guide the conversation rather than focusing on a list of specific questions which may result in limited responses.40 This supports Seliger et al. (1989) who maintain that qualitative researchers are more likely to use semi-structured and open-ended interviews which allow the words of the respondents, and their experiences and perspectives to shine through. The format of semistructured interviews, therefore, allows the participants some latitude and freedom to talk about what is of interest or importance to them. Thus, the researcher asks a specific set of questions but also allows the conversation to flow naturally, making room for it to go in unexpected directions. According to Hesse-Biber et al. (2011), interviewees often have information that the researcher may not have thought of in advance. When this knowledge emerges the researcher using a semi-structured design is likely to allow the conversation to develop and explore new topics that are relevant to the interviewee. Seliger et al. (1989: 167) defines semi-structured interviews as follows, “there are specific core questions determined in advance from which the interviewer branches off to explore in-depth information, probing according to the way the interview proceeds, and allowing elaboration, within limits.” Brown (2001: 35); Nunan (1992: 150) and Seliger et al. (1989: 126) state that semi-structured interviews have the following advantages: A high return rate; Fewer incomplete answers than surveys as the researcher can clarify ambiguous answers during the interview; Allow for digression from a set format, either in the questions or the answers, depending on the circumstances; o In addition, semi-structured interviews allow for in-depth information gathering. Give the interviewer a degree of power and control over the interview and allow for a measure of flexibility. Furthermore, the researcher is able to make notes about the participants’ environment, and non-verbal behaviours such as body language, facial expressions and gestures; 40

The semi-structured interview consists of a short, structured section designed to gather biographical data, for example: age, gender, number of years that the person has taught TESOL and number of years at the current language school. Although age and gender differences are not under investigation, this information could be useful for further research.

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Allow the interviewer to gather specific data from all the participants as the format can be designed to elicit the information required; and Give the interviewer privileged access into the lives of the participants. This supports Hesse-Biber et al. (2011); Merriam (2009) and Nunan (1992) who highlight the importance of contextual knowledge. Furthermore, Brown (2001) states that interviews are a ‘personal’ research instrument which yield rich spoken and written data. In addition, Hesse-Biber et al. (2011: 95) state that semi-structured interviews: Do not require observation of the participants in a naturalistic setting, that is, interviews can take place in a prearranged setting which is comfortable and convenient for the participants; Yield large amounts of data in the form of interview transcripts which are later reduced in the analytical and interpretative process; and Enable researchers to find patterns or themes in ‘thick descriptions’ of social phenomena. According to Seliger et al. (1989: 166) and Brown (2001: 35), disadvantages of semi-structured interviews include: Can be costly, time-consuming and difficult to administer; Tend to be limited to small scale research studies; Are never completely anonymous; Tend to be restricted geographically; Depend on the researcher being a skilled interviewer and thus may require extensive training; Elements of bias and subjectivity may be introduced and establishing a rapport with the interviewees may lead them to respond in a certain way to please the interviewer. Nunan (1992:150) maintains that the main source of bias is the asymmetrical relationship between the researcher and the participants as the researcher possesses more power than the participants. Thus this “inequitable relationship” will affect the content of the interview as well as the language used. By means of the semi-structured interviews, the researcher gathered rich, thick descriptive data based on the TESOL teachers perceptions of what they found stressful inside and outside the classroom, what support structures were available to TESOL teachers and how the TESOL teachers coped with stress. This rich, thick data included a description of the setting and the participants as well as a detailed description of the findings with evidence presented in the form of quotes taken from the semi-structured interviews and other field notes. This supports Merriam (2009) who highlights the importance of keeping a research journal and Lincoln and Guba (1985) who suggest that qualitative researchers use an audit trail to assist independent

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researchers in authenticating the findings of a study by following the trail of the original researcher. Dunne, Pryor and Yates (2005: 76) also recommend keeping a research diary so that the researcher’s “thoughts and feelings may be included as another research text.” All the interviews were recorded with the participants’ permission and were transcribed by the researcher. (See Appendix 3 for two extracts from the researcher’s journal). 3.7. Methodology 3.7.1. Data collection Prior to the pilot study and data collection, the researcher obtained approval from the head of each private language school identified for this research study. The researcher had identified ten private language schools41 in Johannesburg via internet research. The researcher emailed the various directors of the language schools requesting permission to conduct doctoral research at the school. Once permission was received, the researcher asked the directors of the participating schools to identify a contact person such as a course coordinator with whom the researcher could liaise in order to inform the participants of the research study and obtain consent from the relevant participants. All participants were asked to sign a consent form (See Appendix 4 for the private language school consent form and Appendix 5 for the participant consent form). By signing the consent form, the participants agreed to take part in phase one and two of the research study. Once all the consent forms had been signed and returned to the researcher, the participants were sent the MBI-ES via email and asked to complete and then email the completed survey back to the researcher. As the participants worked at different private language schools, it was not possible to coordinate all participants to take the MBI-ES at the same time and in the same place. Once the results of the MBI-ES were known, the researcher made contact with those participants who revealed high levels of stress or possible burnout. Arrangements were then made for face-to-face semi-structured interviews with the relevant participants. 3.7.2. Research instruments 3.7.2.1. Phase One: The quantitative phase The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (See Appendix 6 for the MBI-ES) The MBI-Educators survey (MBI-ES) constituted phase one of the study. The MBI-ES was administered to a sample of forty-three TESOL teachers42 in order to determine whether TESOL teachers working at private language schools experienced burnout. The results of the MBI-ES provided the answer to research question one which was to discover whether TESOL teachers working at private language schools in Johannesburg experienced burnout. 41

The private language schools that participated in this research study did not wish to be named. Patton (2002: 209) recommends specifying a minimum sample size “based on expected reasonable coverage of the phenomenon given the purpose of the study.” 42

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There are several versions of the Maslach Burnout Inventory: The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS) is the original survey designed by Christina Maslach and Susan E. Jackson in 1981. The survey is designed for people working in human service occupations such as social workers, nurses, doctors and police officers; The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES) was designed by Maslach, Jackson and Schwab in 1996. It is an adaptation of the original survey developed for people working in educational settings. The MBI-ES measures the same three dimensions as the MBI-HSS survey namely Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalisation and Personal Accomplishment with a 22-item survey divided into the three sub-scales with a 7-point scale for responses ranging from 0 (never) to 7 (every day). The only difference is the substitution of the term ‘recipients’ with the term ‘students’; o The higher the respondents score on Depersonalisation and Emotional exhaustion and the lower they score on the Personal Accomplishment scale, the higher their levels of burnout. The Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) is a new version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory published in 1996 by Schaufeli, Leiter, Maslach and Jackson. The survey is based on the original MBI-HSS and applicable to all types of jobs and occupations. The three components of burnout are conceptualised in slightly broader terms with respect to the total job and not only to the personal relationships that may be part of the job. Thus the three components are: Exhaustion, Cynicism ( a distant attitude towards the job) and reduced Professional Efficacy; and The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI-SS) is a version of the survey published in 2002 by Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma and Bakker. The survey measures burnout in the pre-occupational context outside a specific occupational area, and is used mainly with university students (Salanova and Llorens, 2008: 61). Each respondent’s results are scored by using a scoring key that contains directions for scoring each subscale. The scores are considered separately and are not combined into a single score, thus, three scores are computed for each respondent (Zalaquett and Wood, 1997). The results will then determine whether the sample of teachers being investigated is experiencing burnout. In terms of the construction and development of the survey, the Maslach Burnout InventoryHuman Services Survey (MBI-HSS) was originally constructed in the early 1980s to measure burnout exclusively in those working in the human service sector such as nursing staff and social workers (Salanova et al., 2008: 59). The survey items are designed to measure hypothetical aspects of burnout and are written in the form of statements about personal feelings or attitudes. A preliminary form of the MBI-HSS, which consisted of 47 items, was

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originally administered to a sample of people from a variety of health and service occupations.43 The occupations represented are those that, according to previous research, had a high potential for burnout as the workers dealt directly with people about issues that were or could have been problematic and stressful. Thus strong emotional feelings were likely to be present in the work setting and it is this chronic emotional stress that can induce burnout (Maslach et al., 1981: 5). Data from this first sample were subjected to factor analysis using principal factoring with iteration and an orthogonal (varimax) rotation.44 Ten factors accounted for over three-quarters of the variance. A set of selection criteria were then applied to the items, yielding a reduction in the number of items from 47 to 25 items and then later to the current 22-item survey. Items were retained that met al.l of the following criteria: a factor loading greater than .40 on only one of the factors, a large range of subject responses, a relatively low percentage of subjects checking the ‘never’ response, and a high item-total correlation (Maslach et al., 1981: 5). To obtain confirmatory data for the pattern of factors, the survey was then administered to a new sample of 420 people from a similar range of professions. In factor analysis of the 25-item form and later the 22-item form, using principal factoring with iteration plus an orthogonal rotation, the factors that emerged were similar for both frequency and intensity ratings. Thus three of these factors became the subscales of the MBI-HSS and MBI-ES. Nine items in the Emotional Exhaustion subscale describe feelings of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one’s work. The item with the highest factor loading (.84 on frequency and .81 on intensity) was the one that directly referred to burnout, that is, ‘I feel burned out from my work’. Five items in the Depersonalisation subscale describe an unfeeling and impersonal response towards the recipients of one’s care or service. For both the Emotional Exhaustion subscale and the Depersonalisation subscale, the higher mean scores meant higher degrees of experienced burnout. Some of the component items on each subscale have low loadings on the other, therefore, there is a moderate correlation between the two subscales. This is consistent with theoretical expectations that these are separate but related aspects of burnout (Maslach et al., 1981: 6). The subscale of Personal Accomplishment contains eight items that describe feelings of competence and successful achievement in one’s work with people. In contrast to the two 43

Occupations represented in both the scale development and MBI normative samples presented in Tables 4 and 5 consisted of the following: 845 social security administration public contact employees, 142 police officers, 231 nurses, 125 agency administrators, 222 teachers, 97 counsellors, 91 social workers, 68 probation officers, 63 mental health workers, 86 physicians, 40 psychologists, 31 attorneys and 77 others (Maslach et al., 1981:2). 44 Varimax rotation is often used in surveys to see how groups of questions (items) measure the same concept. The goal of a varimax rotation is to minimise the complexity of the components by making the large loadings larger and the small loadings smaller within each component. [Source: www.statsexplained.org/Aboutvarimax, (accessed 21 September, 2012)].

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other subscales, lower mean scores on this scale correspond to higher degrees of experienced burnout. The Personal Accomplishment subscale is independent of the other subscales and its component items do not load negatively on them, that is, Personal Accomplishment cannot be assumed to be the opposite of Emotional Exhaustion or Depersonalisation as the correlations between the Personal Accomplishment subscale and the other subscales are fairly low (Maslach et al., 1981: 6). Thus, the MBI, in its various forms, is designed to assess the three aspects of the burnout syndrome: Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalisation and a lack of Personal Accomplishment. Each aspect is measured by a separate subscale: The Emotional Exhaustion subscale assesses feelings of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one’s work; The Depersonalisation subscale measures an unfeeling and impersonal response towards recipients of one’s service, care, treatment or instruction; and The Personal Accomplishment subscale assesses feelings of competence and successful achievement in one’s work with people. Burnout is, therefore, conceptualised as a continuous variable ranging from low to moderate to high degrees of experienced feeling. It is not viewed as a dichotomous variable, which is either present or absent. A high degree of burnout is revealed by high scores on Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalisation and low scores on the Personal Accomplishment subscale. The high score corresponds to the upper-third of the normative distribution. A moderate degree of burnout is reflected by moderate scores on the three subscales which correspond to the middle-third of the normative distribution. A low degree of burnout is revealed by low scores on the Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalisation subscales and in high scores on the Personal Accomplishment subscale. The low scores correspond to the lower-third of the normative distribution (Maslach et al., 1981: 1-2). Each completed survey is scored using a scoring key which contains directions for scoring each subscale and dimension. If desired, each score can then be coded as low, moderate or high using the numerical cut-off points listed on the scoring key (See Table 4 for the categorisation of the MBI scores and the numerical cut-off points). The MBI scores for a group of respondents can be treated as aggregate data. Means and standard deviations for each subscale are computed for the entire group and can be compared to the normative data in Table 5 which shows the means and standard deviations for the MBI subscales. Whenever statistical analyses are performed with the MBI, it is recommended that the original numerical scores are used rather than the categorisation of low, moderate, and high because the power of statistical analysis is enhanced by using the full range of scores (Maslach et al., 1981: 1-2).

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Table 4 Categorisation of MBI Scores with Numerical Cut-Off Points Range of experienced burnout MBI Subscale Low Moderate High (lower third) (middle third) (upper third) Emotional Exhaustion Frequency ≤ 17 18 - 29 ≥ 30 Intensity ≤ 25 26 - 39 ≥ 40 Depersonalisation Frequency ≤5 6 -11 ≥ 12 Intensity ≤6 7 -14 ≥ 15 Personal Accomplishment Frequency ≥ 40 39 -34 ≤ 33 Intensity ≥ 44 43 -37 ≤ 36 (Source: Maslach et al., 1981:2)

Table 5 Means and Standard Deviations for the MBI Subscales MBI Subscales Emotional Exhaustion Depersonalisation Personal Accomplishment Frequency (n = 1400) M 24.08 9.40 36.01 SD 11.88 6.90 6.93 Intensity (n = 1936) M 31.68 11.71 39.70 SD 13.84 8.09 7.68 (Source: Maslach et al., 1981:3)

In terms of the administration of the MBI-ES, the survey is self-administered and takes approximately 20-30 minutes to fill out. Complete instructions are provided for the respondent on the survey. According to Maslach et al. (1981: 2), in order to minimise response biases: Respondents should complete the MBI-ES on their own without knowing how other respondents are answering. Respondents can be tested individually or as a group; and The researcher should ensure that respondents are aware that their responses are confidential. Due to the sensitive nature of some of the items, it is important that respondents feel comfortable about expressing their true feelings. This supports Zalaquett et al. (1997) who emphasise the importance of confidentiality being ensured if

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respondents are expected to be completely truthful. Ideally, they should be able to complete the MBI anonymously. If anonymity is not possible, then the researcher should use a number or a code to identify the person. In this case, the researcher decided to use pseudonyms in order to protect the identities of the respondents. 3.7.2.1.1. Reliability of the MBI Nunan (1992: 14) states that reliability refers to the consistency and accuracy of the results obtained from a research study and the extent to which a study can be replicated. Reliability consists of internal and external reliability. Internal reliability Internal reliability is defined as the degree to which other researchers, given a set of previously generated constructs, would match them with the data in the same way as the original researcher did, that is, it refers to the consistency of data collection, analysis and interpretation (Edge et al., 1998: 344). According to Maslach et al., (1981: 7), the reliability coefficients for the MBI are as follows: Internal consistency was estimated using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha45 which yielded the following for the subscales: o The Emotional Exhaustion subscale: .90 for frequency and .87 for intensity with a standard error of measurement of 3.80 for frequency and 4.99 for intensity; o The Depersonalisation subscale: .79 for frequency and .76 for intensity with a standard error of measurement of 3.16 for frequency and 3.96 for intensity; and o The Personal Accomplishment subscale: .71 for frequency and .73 for intensity with a standard error of measurement of 3.73 for frequency and 3.99 for intensity. South African studies using the MBI have confirmed a three-factor structure and have revealed good internal consistency (Storm and Rothmann, 2003). Storm et al. (2003) also confirmed the cross-cultural efficacy of the MBI for different race and language groups. Pretorius (1994) used the MBI to measure the burnout levels of ninety-four faculty members at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. Analysis of the results indicated that the inventory can be considered a reliable measure of burnout. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the factorial structure of the scale was similar to those reported for educational groups in North America. In terms of test-retest reliability, studies have also found the MBI sub-scales to be 45

Cronbach’s coefficient alpha is commonly used as a measure of internal consistency or reliability. [Source: Bland, J.M. and Altman, D.G. Statistics notes: Cronbach’s Alpha. [Source: www.bmj.com, (accessed 08-02- 2011)].

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stable over time (Leiter and Durup, 1994). Furthermore, Jackson and Rothmann (2005) used an adapted version of the MBI-GS and a biographical questionnaire to study burnout in 1170 educators in the North West province of South Africa. The researchers discovered that the three factors of the MBI showed acceptable internal consistencies and construct equivalence for two different language groups. External reliability External reliability rests on the concept of independent researchers being able to discover the same phenomena or generate the same constructs in the same or a similar research setting (Edge et al., 1998: 344). In terms of external reliability, the MBI is a stable instrument and is quantifiable using the scoring key provided (Maslach et al., 1981: 7). If an independent researcher replicated this study using the MBI-ES and a similar sample of TESOL teachers working at private language schools, the researcher would come to the same conclusion. Campbell and Rothmann (2005) report four South African studies that have used the MBI-GS with senior managers, local government officials, police officers and call centre staff. The researchers undertook a psychometric assessment of the MBI and concluded that the MBI is a reliable instrument for use in South Africa. 3.7.2.1.2. Validity of the MBI Nunan (1992: 15) defines validity as the extent to which a research study actually investigates what the researcher claims to investigate. Validity can be divided into internal and external validity. Internal validity Internal validity is concerned with credibility and whether the research findings match reality, that is, is the researcher observing or measuring what they think they are measuring? And has the researcher taken steps to ensure that the research results are not affected by external variables? According to Seliger et al. (1989: 94-104), factors that can affect internal validity or the credibility of the research findings are: Subject variability: as one assumes that the population used in the research is representative of the general population to which the research results would apply. The research can achieve greater representativeness by using random sampling in which subjects are chosen at random from a larger pool of potential subjects; o In this research study, a purposive or convenience sample was used and there was no need to randomly assign participants to different groups or to undergo different procedures. However, there was an element of random selection in the

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fact that the TESOL teachers who participated in the research study were from different private language schools, ages, genders and backgrounds; o Strict limitations were also put in place to control subject variability (see Subjects). Size of subject population: small populations tend to magnify the effects of individual variability which can cause possible distortions to the data. The greater the size of the population, the smaller the effect of individual variability and the smaller the number of subjects, the more the study is susceptible to biases created by an over-representation of some subject characteristic; o Merriam (2009), however, maintains that a small sample can be selected precisely because the researcher wishes to understand the particulars rather than what is generally true of many; o Although this research study involved a small number of participants (fortythree), the researcher selected participants from different private language schools as it was possible that over-representation of TESOL teachers from a particular language school would have distorted the data as those teachers may have been experiencing elevated stress levels due to internal conflict at the school. Time allotted for data collection: this factor is important when the researcher is investigating a change in the sample population over time; o In this research study, the main aim was to investigate burnout at a particular point in time, that is, to obtain a ‘snapshot’ view of the phenomenon. This supports Nunan (1992: 140) who states that the “purpose of a survey is generally to obtain a snapshot of conditions, attitudes and events at a single point in time.” The passage of time was thus not of concern in this research study. Comparability of subjects: the researcher placed strict limitations on the participants in the study so as to increase the comparability of the participants (see Subjects). History, attrition and maturation; these factors are important when time is necessary for a particular treatment to have an effect, that is, the research may be negatively affected by the passing of time. In terms of history, longitudinal studies may be negatively affected by the passage of time. Attrition is when the composition of the population changes the longer the study continues which affects the data negatively, and maturation is particularly significant with research involving younger subjects who may mature and thus change over the course of the research study; o In this research study, the effects of history, attrition and maturation did not affect the study. Instrument and task sensitivity; refers to the effect that the test or instrument has on the subjects as participants may become test-wise with the pre-test or pilot creating a

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practice effect, that is, the pre-test instrument or pilot study may affect the attitudes of the subjects by sensitising them to the questions; o Instrument sensitivity is one of the reasons why Merriam (2009) advises researchers to use multiple methods of data collection such as surveys, interviews, documents and observations. This enhances the credibility of a study. Thus data can be compared and cross-checked. o All the participants completed phase one, the MBI-ES and then selected participants completed phase two, the semi-structured interviews. Participants who did not complete phase one could not take part in phase two. The MBI-ES is a confidential document and participants were assured that people other than the researcher and the researcher’s supervisors, would not have access to the completed surveys and the results. o Some participants may have falsified their responses on the MBI-ES so that burnout could not be detected. Conversely, some participants may have chosen responses which indicated high burnout, when in fact the responses were not indicative of their true feelings. However, there was no advantage to the participants in falsifying their responses on the survey. The researcher ensured that participants understood that there were no right or wrong answers. External validity External validity refers to being able to generalise the findings to situations outside that in which the research was conducted, that is, the transferability of the research results from the sample to a wider population (Edge et al., 1998). Lincoln et al. (1985) maintain that the burden of proof lies less with the original researcher than with the person seeking to make an application for the research elsewhere as the original researcher cannot know the contexts to which transferability may be sought. The onus is, however, on the original researcher to provide sufficient descriptive data to make transferability possible. According to Seliger et al. (1989: 106-110), factors that can affect external validity are: Population characteristics: this is concerned with the degree to which the sample population in the study have the same characteristics as the population to which the research findings are to be applied, that is, is the population used in the research a specific subset of the larger population? o In this research study, the sample population consisted of TESOL teachers working at private language schools in Johannesburg. The teachers came from a range of backgrounds with different qualifications and teaching experiences and also differed in terms of age and gender. The researcher did, however, restrict the sample to first language speakers of English so that the results could be

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applied to the general population of English-speaking TESOL teachers working at private language schools in South Africa. The researcher would be cautious though about applying the results of the research to native speaker TESOL teachers working in other countries as the working conditions of TESOL teachers and perceptions of the profession differ from one country to another. Interaction of subject selection and research: this is a problem with paid or volunteer subjects as they may not be representative of the wider population to which the research findings are generalised. o In this research study, the participants did not receive any form of payment and were not volunteers from the general public. There was no danger of subjects participating in the study for monetary reasons or subjects volunteering to participate in the study so as to attract attention. The effect of the research environment: the fact that subjects are aware of what the study is about may change their behaviour which distorts the research results. Subjects may, therefore, feel they are suffering from burnout when in fact they are not because just knowing the study is about burnout may heighten the participants’ awareness of the phenomenon. o In this research study, it was not possible to conduct the research without the participants being aware of the nature of the research. Burgess (1984: 48) maintains that covert research, in which the subjects are not aware of being studied or the true nature of the study, can actually limit the range of research activities as the researcher only has access to those situations which are observed. It is, therefore, not possible to conduct interviews, collect life-histories or documentary evidence produced by a particular group of people. Researcher effects: the researcher may unintentionally ask leading questions so as to obtain the information being sought or provide clues through a change in the tone of voice or body language; o All data was collected and analysed in an objective manner and the findings reflect the actual data obtained from the subjects. In addition, the researcher kept a research journal which provided a detailed account of the methods, procedures and decisions made in carrying out the research. o Seliger et al. (1989: 104) mention the importance of retrievability which refers to the researcher being able to ‘retrieve’ their research records such as participants’ responses on surveys and interview transcripts. It is important that the researcher keep meticulous records of data collected so that the data can be inspected and reviewed if necessary. Thus the researcher should collect the data by mechanical means such as audio recording and transcripts of interviews should be made.

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The effect of time: this is concerned with the degree to which the time frame of the research context can be applied to the real world to which the results will be generalised. o In this research study, the aim was to obtain a ‘snapshot’ in time and not to conduct a longitudinal study of burnout. The researcher wanted to discover whether TESOL teachers currently working in private language schools were experiencing burnout. According to Maslach et al. (1981: 7), convergent validity, the degree to which a measure is correlated with other measures that it is predicted to correlate with, was demonstrated by respondents MBI scores being correlated with behavioural ratings made independently by a person who knew the individual well such as a co-worker or spouse. MBI scores were also correlated with the presence of certain job characteristics that were expected to contribute to experienced burnout such as lack of control and work overload. Finally, the MBI scores were correlated with measures of various outcomes that had been hypothesised to be related to burnout such as dissatisfaction with opportunities for personal growth and development on the job and the belief that one’s work was not very meaningful or worthwhile. The three sets of correlations provided substantial evidence for the validity of the MBI. Maslach et al. (1981: 9) state that it is important to distinguish the MBI from measures of other psychological constructs that might be confounded with burnout such as feelings of dissatisfaction with one’s job. By so doing, discriminant validity, which tests whether concepts that are supposed to be unrelated are actually unrelated, would be demonstrated. One would expect the experience of burnout to have some relationship to lowered feelings of job satisfaction, however, it was predicted that they would not be so highly correlated as to suggest that they were actually the same thing. Maslach et al. (1981: 9) conducted a comparison of ninety-one social service and mental health workers scores on the MBI and the JDS measure of ‘general job satisfaction’ to provide support for this reasoning. The researchers found that job satisfaction had a moderate negative correlation with Emotional Exhaustion (r = -.23, p < .05) and Depersonalisation (frequency only r =-.22, p